How Does Extracting a Tooth Restore Your Smile?
When most people think about restorative dental care, they envision different ways to save a tooth that’s damaged or infected. While saving a tooth is the typical goal of restorative dental treatment, the overall mission is to restore your overall oral health and your bite’s ability to function properly. In some cases, that means extracting a tooth that has become a serious threat to your oral health, and often, replacing the tooth with a highly lifelike restoration. Today, we examine a few situations in which restoring your smile requires extracting a tooth, and why the procedure may be necessary.
If the tooth has become impacted
One of the more common reasons for needing to extract a tooth is because it wasn’t able to erupt properly along your dental ridge. Such is often the case with wisdom teeth, or third molars, that become impacted due to crowding issues. A wisdom tooth can become impacted before the molar has a chance to fully develop or erupt from the gums. This impaction may be caused by too little space within the jawbone structure, or minimal room remaining next to the second molars. When this occurs, the only way to relieve the intense discomfort and resulting damage to your oral structures is to extract the impacted wisdom teeth as soon as possible.
If the tooth carries a severe infection
Not every wisdom tooth becomes impacted, and not every extracted tooth is a third molar. For some people, tooth extraction becomes necessary because of a tooth infection that has become too severe to treat. Known as tooth decay, progressive tooth infection doesn’t seem so serious at first, taking the form of a cavity that can usually be treated conservatively. However, several different factors, such as waiting to treat the tooth, can lead to a much more severe infection, with decay affecting the tissues inside of the tooth’s inner chambers. In extreme cases, the tooth may not have enough healthy structure left to restore. The only way to save the rest of your oral health from the infection may be to extract the tooth, then replace it to restore your bite’s balance and function.
If the tooth can’t be saved
Tooth decay is a common way for your tooth to become severely compromised, but the same concern may occur in the case of structural damage to the tooth. Even if decay isn’t present, a tooth may become so severely fractured or broken that no restoration will be enough to save it. Extreme tooth damage may be the result of severe accidental trauma, or it may have started as much less severe tooth damage and was allowed to progress over time. In any case, the compromised tooth can impact your bite balance and function, as well as your overall oral health and the integrity of your other teeth. After removing it, we can replace the tooth with a lifelike restoration to restore your bites function and improve your long-term oral health.
Find out if you need tooth extraction
When restoring a tooth isn’t an option, restoring the rest of your smile could require extracting and replacing the tooth. To learn more, call our Cleveland Family Dentistry office in Cleveland, TX, today at (281) 592-1234. We also serve the residents of Kingwood, Conroe, Livingston, and all surrounding communities.