Your teeth affect your whole body. When they’re healthy, you’re healthier too. A missing tooth can affect your bite, speech and eating choices. As you rely more on your remaining teeth, you increase the chance they will wear out prematurely, or be damaged or lost. You may also experience headaches and/or jaw pain. Who would want their appearance and health to deteriorate? That’s the natural consequence of missing teeth – the bone literally melts away.

After tooth extraction, the tooth socket will usually fill naturally with bone in two to three months. However, without bone grafting the height and width of the  bony socket will decrease. This loss of bone ridge volume after tooth extraction can be quite dramatic, with up to 50% of the volume lost within six months.  Bone graft is  most often placed at the time of tooth extraction to help your body fill in the empty socket with bone, in a procedure known as socket preservation. This will maintain the width and volume of bone you will need for implant placement.

The following websites are provided as a resource for our referring doctors. This page contains hyperlinks to World Wide Web sites that are created and maintained by other organizations. We have included these links because we think that our referring doctors may find them of interest. Keep in mind that Drs. Pollack, Odrich or Sarmiento does not necessarily endorse the views expressed on these websites. Also, we do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information presented on these sites. American Academy of Periodontology American Academy of Periodontists Links Page American Board of Periodontology