Damaging a tooth or suffering extensive decay often leads to tooth extractions. But first, your Orlando family dentist works hard to fix your tooth through modern treatment methods. But if your tooth cannot remain in place for good dental health, an extraction no longer means you suffer an unsightly gap in your smile or bite.
Methods of Tooth Extractions
Your dentist provides two types of tooth extractions. These include simple extractions and surgical tooth extractions. A simple extraction involves loosening your tooth with an elevator device, then using forceps to remove it. Surgical extractions for broken teeth or those not yet grown into your mouth involve making a small cut in your gum to remove the tooth surgically.
Simple extractions usually only require local anesthetic, meaning you do not sleep through the procedure. You do receive enough anesthetic to avoid feeling the tooth removal, however. Surgical extractions involve local anesthesia for most people, sometimes with IV or general anesthesia. Sedation sometimes also includes steroids or antibiotics in the IV, to promote healing and reduce swelling while keeping you pain-free.
Why You Need Dental Extractions
Dental extractions keep severely damaged or decayed teeth from causing you discomfort or additional problems with surrounding teeth. But having a tooth repaired or removed today provides many options for maintaining a complete and natural looking smile. These options for tooth replacement or repair include porcelain crowns, fillings, implants, partial dentures and other methods.
Reasons for tooth extractions include:
- Serious tooth decay or infection
- Extra teeth blocking the new tooth from growing into place
- Baby teeth not falling out as they should
- Creating space for teeth straightening
- Radiation treatment to the head or neck
- Wisdom teeth removal
Wisdom tooth removal is common for teens or young adults. Dentists usually remove these four third molars before they grow in or shortly after that. Wisdom teeth cause many oral health problems, mainly when they decay, become infected or cause pain. Many become impacted, causing swelling and pain, leading to dental extractions.
Tooth Replacement after Extractions
In President George Washington’s era, dentures included wooden teeth. This meant you had constant discomfort and even intense pain when you lost your natural teeth to decay or tooth extractions. Of course, people experienced the need for dentures at a young age because they did not have the benefit of fluoride toothpaste or today’s dental care.
Today’s methods of tooth replacement include more comfortable and durable dentures for natural-looking replacement of all of your upper or lower teeth. A partial denture replaces only one or more while keeping other natural teeth in place. Other options include dental implants, one of the most remarkable and durable methods of natural-looking tooth replacement.
Children frequently go through dental extractions before their permanent teeth grow in, for orthodontic care or to remove painful wisdom teeth. But as an adult, you can avoid needing extractions or losing your teeth to other problems by maintaining good daily oral hygiene. You also prevent problems by seeing your dentist twice yearly.
Dental Restorations in Orlando, Florida
For whatever reason you possibly need extractions, restorative dentistry provides you with options. At S. Keith Mahan, DDS in Orlando, you learn about these options before extraction. Together, you and the dentist decide the best means of maintaining your best, most natural-looking smile.
Dental services and dental procedures of S. Keith Mahan, DDS include:
- General dentistry
- Family and cosmetic dentistry
- Tooth whitening
- Root canal treatment
- Pediatric dentist
Call S. Keith Mahan, DDS now at 407-841-7241 for a consultation appointment and to learn more about tooth extractions or your other dental health needs.
