Reverse Dental Bone Loss
Bone loss cannot be reversed on its own. Left untreated, your jawbone around your teeth will continue to resorb, causing more tooth loss, disease, and pain. In most cases, dental bone loss can be stopped. With treatment, you can regenerate bone and reverse bone loss.
How to Treat Dental Bone Loss
Your dentist will recommend a bone loss treatment when:
- Existing teeth or implants are at risk.
- Your jawbone is too unstable to support restorative treatment.
They will review your situation and determine the best treatment, which might include:
- Guided Bone Regeneration — Rebuilds the bone that has been lost, creating a strong and stable foundation to replace a missing tooth.
- Bone Graft — Builds up the foundation around your teeth to maintain their health.
To heal infection and to regenerate and replace lost bone, the area needs to be supplied with nutrients in the blood. If the bone loss is surrounded by healthy bone, we can eliminate infection, and then healthy bone will be able to provide a blood and nutrient supply to rebuild the area.
Dental Treatment for Reversing Bone Loss
There are several bone grafting procedures that will help reverse bone loss by regenerating bone. The most common is a technique called guided bone regeneration, or GBR. With this procedure, a soft putty-like form of bone is placed into the defective area so that your body will heal at the site and generate healthy new bone.
Dental Treatment for Preventing Bone Loss
Several treatments exist for preventing bone loss:
- Surgical dental cleanings, or open-flap debridement- This type of cleaning allows better access deeper into gum pockets to provide a full disinfection around teeth. The procedure involves gently peeling the gums away from the teeth to enable improved access during cleaning.
- Dental implant-Tooth loss is a common cause of dental bone loss. After tooth extraction, the socket remodels, and bone volume is lost. The jawbone needs constant stimulation provided by chewing pressures to preserve its density. Replacing a lost tooth with a dental implant will preserve bone at the site of dental extraction.
- Socket preservation- A procedure where bone is grafted into the socket after tooth extraction. The site is sutured, and the vacant socket heals with dense, healthy bone.
In many cases, dental bone loss is the result of gum disease. This is the result of bacteria carrying plaque remaining on gum tissue and within gum pockets. If your oral hygiene is poor, your mouth will be in a constant pro-inflammatory state, promoting bone loss.
In some cases, you might have pristine teeth and gums but have an overactive immune system, which mounts an excessive attack on a normal level in the mouth. Now it produces destructive substances and enzymes that will also cause bone loss.
Teeth with bone loss tend to be loose and more mobile. Which means as you chew, plaque, food particles, and bacteria will slide into gum pockets around loose teeth.
Smoking and tooth grinding will promote bone loss. Eliminating the habit of smoking will improve your ability to curtail bone loss.
Also, a soft plastic night guard can be made by your dentist as a means of cushioning impact during nighttime tooth grinding. The night guard will also prevent chipping of teeth.
If you want to stop bone loss, you need to brush more, floss more, and add additional cleaning tools. Consider rinsing or irrigating to free up and remove larger food particles that flossing cannot.