Prepare Your Smile with a Supplemental Procedure

Our Supplemental Treatments

We offer two preliminary treatments that can increase your chances of receiving dental implants.

If you’ve been living with gum disease for too long without treatment, and it has progressed to its most advanced stage, it’s likely your gums have recessed and you’ll need tissue grafting.

If you’ve been wearing dentures or suffering from tooth loss for too long, then you’ve likely lost bone density in your jaw. In this case, you’ll need bone grafts to help rebuild any lost bone or repair a receded jawbone.

How the Process Works

During a gum grafting procedure, Dr. Thompson uses healthy tissue from another part of your body to help build your gums back from where they’ve receded. Here at our Midland dental office, we may perform one of three types of gum grafts depending on your case.

The three different gum grafting procedures we offer include:

1. Connective tissue grafts: Known as the most common method, Dr. Thompson will take tissue from the flap of the roof of your mouth and use it to attach to the gum tissue you’ve lost that surrounds your tooth root.
2. Free gingival grafts: Similar to a connective tissue graft, we’ll take tissues from the roof of the mouth but instead of removing it from the flap, we’ll remove it from the top of the mouth. This is often used for people with naturally thin gums.
3. Pedicle grafts: For this procedure, Dr. Thompson will use a graft from the gum around or near the tooth that needs repair. This is typically for patients with plenty of gum tissue so we can pull it over the exposed root and securely sew the gums into place

Understanding the Process

Also known as regenerative surgery, bone grafting helps rebuild lost jawbone and provide support to your gum tissues. Dr. Thompson will first separate your gums from your teeth to gain access to the roots and bone. He will then take some of your existing healthy bone to fill into the inadequate areas of your jawbone.

Once Dr. Thompson has successfully placed all bone grafts, he’ll put the gums back in place and stitch them together. Over time, the bone grafts will help your jawbone regrow and eventually provide enough support for your dental implants.

Another common bone grafting procedure is ridge augmentation. This is needed when you’ve lost your teeth and bone in the upper jaw, and an indentation of where the teeth once were has occurred. In this case, Dr. Thompson will fill in the indented area with bone and tissue grafts to help provide a fuller, natural appearance to your face.