Bone Grafts / Sinus Lift

People can lose bone from their jaw for a variety of reasons:

• When a missing tooth is not replaced: the integrity of jawbone is maintained through the pressure of chewing. Without this stimulus, bone is lost through resorption
• Trauma: for example, from an accident or sports injury
• Periodontal disease: gum disease degrades and diminishes the supporting bone around teeth
• Tumours: some kinds of jaw tumours can attack the bone itself, whereas other types may necessitate the removal of some bone to fully remove the tumour

When a tooth is missing, before a restorative procedure like a dental implant can be performed, there needs to be enough jawbone present to provide a stable and sustainable attachment. Your clinician will determine this by conducting an X-ray of your jaw, usually in the form of a 3D CBCT scan. If there isn’t enough bone present to create a stable attachment, you will need prior treatment before an implant can be successfully placed.

Fortunately, no. It is relatively straightforward to encourage the growth of new bone using a technique called bone grafting. This procedure typically uses synthetic biomaterials designed to stimulate your jawbone to produce new bone structure. Your dentist will make an incision in your gums to gain access to the underlying bone before packing the area with bone grafting material and stitching the incision back up. The process of developing new bone can be lengthy and is likely to take around three months. Once developed, however, the bone will be strong enough to receive a dental implant.

In cases where there is a large amount of bone missing, your clinician may recommend filling the space with bone taken from elsewhere in your mouth (typically areas such as the back of the jaw or part of the lower chin). This is known as an ‘onlay graft’ and will take some time to integrate with your existing bone. Once healed and settled, however, the bone will also be suitable for placing a dental implant into.

We’re always happy to receive referrals for any of our dental services, we treat routine to very complex cases and we also help extremely nervous patients who require sedation in order to access dental treatment.