Oral Surgery Procedure We Offer
At Luxe Smiles in Palmetto Bay, FL, we offer a wide range of oral surgery procedures, including:
- Tooth extraction
- Wisdom tooth extraction
- Dental implant placement
- Bone graft
- Sinus lift
This helps us provide our patients with comprehensive care that preserves and promotes good oral and overall health.
Tooth Extraction
Dr. Naranjo and Dr. Testar work hard to preserve all your teeth. However, there are some situations where it’s best to extract a tooth.
We will normally recommend tooth extraction when a tooth:
- Can’t be saved
- Threatens other teeth
- Threatens your overall health
- Doesn’t fit in your mouth
If your tooth is damaged or infected, we will try to save it. However, in some cases, gum disease might have undermined the tooth too badly. It will have to come out. When a tooth gets infected, root canal therapy might save it, but sometimes the tooth is too badly damaged and needs to be extracted.
Sometimes the infection around or in your tooth becomes dangerous, either to other teeth or to your overall health. In some cases, a tooth infection can turn deadly, and in this case, we might recommend immediate extraction to protect your teeth, your health, and/or your life.
Finally, there may be some teeth that don’t fit into your mouth. Although sometimes orthodontics can make room for these teeth, other times extraction is the best way to achieve a healthy, balanced smile. We’ll talk more about the most common situation for this: wisdom tooth extraction.
Wisdom Tooth Extraction
Wisdom teeth, also known as third molars, are located at the back of your mouth. They generally emerge later than other teeth, usually during young adulthood, typically between the ages of 17 and 25.
Not everyone needs their wisdom teeth out. However, for many people, there’s not enough room for wisdom teeth. In that case, wisdom tooth extraction can prevent:
- Impacted teeth
- Damage to neighboring teeth
- Abscesses and other sores
- Stuck food and other hygiene problems
- Crooked and/or crowded teeth
As your wisdom teeth try to emerge, they can get impacted–stuck–preventing them from fully emerging. Impacted teeth might emerge partially, making them vulnerable to decay even though they’re not functional. They might also damage the second molar if they impact it. A wisdom tooth that doesn’t fully emerge can develop abscesses, benign tumors, and other sores around it that can further damage your jaw and teeth.
Partially emerged wisdom teeth can be hard to clean. They can get food stuck in them, leading to bad breath, gum disease, and other oral health problems.
Finally, as wisdom teeth push into place, they can crowd your other other teeth, making them crooked and/or crowded. This can happen even if you’ve previously had orthodontics.
We can usually tell if wisdom teeth are going to cause problems years in advance. Since it’s easier to extract wisdom teeth that aren’t fully developed, we often recommend removing them as soon as we have confidence that they will be a problem in the future.
Dental Implant Placement
We also use oral surgery to replace missing teeth. Dental implants are the best tooth replacement because they:
- Look natural
- Feel natural
- Work just like natural teeth
- Require no special maintenance
- Can last a lifetime
Read our dental implant page to learn more about the benefits of dental implants.
Dental implants are artificial teeth roots. Most often, dental implants are made of titanium, because this strong, light metal can bond to your bone. However, there are other materials for dental implants.
Placing a dental implant is a relatively easy procedure, and it might take just a few minutes. People worry about associated discomfort, but there is little pain linked to the procedure. Most people report it’s much less than getting a tooth extracted, comparable to getting a filling.
Dental implants can typically be placed immediately after a tooth extraction, but there are certain situations that may require a delay, such as when there are oral health issues like gum disease. If you have lost a tooth in the past and wish to get a dental implant, it can be done as long as the bone in the area is adequate. However, if the jaw bone is not sufficient to support an implant, we may need to perform a bone graft procedure. This involves adding bone material to the jaw to create a sturdy foundation for the implant. Overall, dental implant placement is a viable option for replacing missing teeth, but it requires careful consideration of your oral health and bone structure to ensure the best possible outcome.
Bone Grafts
Dental implants depend on your bone for support. If there’s not enough bone to support your implants, we will recommend a bone graft. A bone graft uses bone from your body, from a donor body, or from an artificial source to build up the bone where we want the implant.
In some cases, we might perform the graft and implant procedures at the same time. In other cases, we might perform the bone graft first, letting it heal before we place the implant.
Oral Surgery in Palmetto Bay, FL
Are you looking for oral surgery in the Palmetto Bay, FL area? Let Dr. Naranjo and Dr. Tetar help. Our dentists are passionate about providing quality, comprehensive care to all our patients.
To learn whether we can help with your oral surgery procedure, please call (305) 253-7670 or use our online form today to book an appointment at Luxe Smiles in Palmetto Bay, FL.