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Bone grafting

Bone grafting can repair implant sites that have inadequate bone structure due to previous extractions, gum disease, or injuries to ensure a stable implant.

Hear from bone grafting patients like you

Beech & Reid Oral & Dental Implant Surgery provides exemplary oral and maxillofacial surgery services to the Sunnyvale, San Jose, CA, and Milpitas areas and looks forward to serving you and your loved ones. This includes using methods such as bone grafting to ensure our patients receive the natural and long-lasting results they desire. Feel free to listen to our patients who have shared their bone grafting experiences.

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About bone grafting

Dental implants do not only serve as realistic and functional replacement teeth in the mouth, but they also stabilize and help preserve the health of the jaw bone just like natural teeth. Dental implants require strong, healthy jaw bone in order to be placed. If the jaw bone has suffered from atrophy or other causes that have resulted in a thin or soft jaw bone, a bone graft can provide an efficient and effective solution.

In a bone graft procedure, your oral surgeon will use a special bone grafting material and place it into the space where more bone is desired. Typically, it takes a few months for the graft to stabilize and create new, strong bone. Then, you are ready to receive a successful dental implant to a strong, stabilized, and healthy jaw that can healthily support it.

To ensure our patients are treated with exceptional and individualized care, we offer a variety of bone grafting procedures to suit your oral health needs, such as:

  • Sinus lift procedure. Your maxillary sinuses are behind your cheeks and on top of your upper teeth. Some roots of the upper teeth end up inside the maxillary sinuses, and when these teeth are removed, only a thin wall of bone separates the maxillary sinus and the mouth. When this happens, a solution called a sinus lift can be implemented. Here, your oral surgeon places the bone grafting material into the floor of the sinuses, which will eventually become part of the patients’ jaw and can later be used as a site for dental implants.
  • Ridge expansion. In severe cases, the ridge gets reabsorbed and a bone graft is used to increase the ridge height or width. This is used when the jaw ridge gets too thin to place conventional implants.
  • Nerve repositioning. Sometimes, the inferior alveolar nerve may need to be moved to make room for a dental implant. This lower jaw procedure is considered after options such as blade implants are considered first. Here, bone grafting is used to promote bone growth in the repair site of the nerve repositioning.

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and bone morphogenic protein (BMP)

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is a naturally occurring growth factor that is present in your own blood. These factors aid in the body’s ability to heal. PRP has been used in hospital environments for decades and is not able to be utilized in dentistry. Our doctors can extract as little as 55 cc of your blood, extract the PRP, and administer it directly to your surgical site to expedite the healing process.

Similarly, bone morphogenic protein (BMP) is a growth factor present in bone. Your doctor can collect a small sample of BMP and administer it where new bone is needed. This encourages new bone to form and can be greatly beneficial in bone grafting procedures.

Utilizing PRP also has many advantages, such as

  • Safety. It is a byproduct of the patient’s own blood; therefore, disease transmission is not an issue.
  • Convenience. It can be generated in the doctor's office while the patient is undergoing outpatient surgery, such as dental implant placement. In addition, only 55 cc of blood is used when harvesting PRP, so the patient doesn’t have to worry about getting it done at a hospital or blood bank.
  • Ease. PRP is easy to handle and makes bone grafting products more gel-like and easier to use.

Bone grafting can be a highly effective procedure when performed by the highly trained and skilled surgeons at Beech & Reid Oral & Dental Implant Surgery. If you are interested in utilizing PRP procedures during your bone graft, or have questions regarding the procedure, feel free to contact our office. We are here to help and want to put you at ease about receiving the optimal, caring oral surgical treatment you deserve.