Oral Surgery
Oral Surgery: Everything You Need to Know Now
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been considering making some serious oral health decisions. We’re here to help educate you and ease your mind, making your ability to choose the best treatment options on your dental journey easier.
Surgery can feel like a frightening word, but did you know that oral surgery in Nashville is incredibly common? Studies estimate that over twenty million teeth are extracted each year in the United States. These kind of procedures are nothing to be afraid of.
In a perfect world all our teeth would serve their precise purpose and wouldn’t need to be removed at all, but alas, we live flawed lives and teeth can fail us even when we take the best care of them. There are many ways, as well as reasons, to extract a tooth.
Some of the reasons to have a tooth removed include overcrowding of your teeth, considerable decay, tooth infection, or when a filling or crown just can’t be repaired. One of the most common instances of tooth extraction would be the removal of wisdom teeth.
When you arrive at your dental office to talk to your dentist or oral surgeon about your options, they may take an x-ray and ask you about your medical history. They will then make a personalized plan to make sure that your surgical treatment is the very best for you and your teeth.
When it comes to the extraction, there are two types: simple and surgical. A simple extraction involves a local anesthetic to numb the area around your tooth. This will numb any physical pain you might feel and make your experience more comfortable. The dental procedure itself will involve the loosening of the tooth and then the use of forceps to take the tooth out.
A surgical procedure involves local anesthetics and an anesthesia called intravenous, which can put you into a more relaxed state. Depending on your specific oral situation, general anesthesia might be used. This will put you into an unconscious state and will remove your awareness of pain, pressure, or discomfort of any kind. Then, using proper medical tools, the medical professional will remove the tooth along with any bone or gums that also need to be extracted.
Side effects of these type of procedures can include redness or swelling around the area where surgery took place, nausea, vomiting, and bleeding. However, it’s important to keep in mind that these aren’t common and that if your dentist recommends a procedure it usually will lead to a healthier and happier you.
It’s normally only a few days recovery; and if you make sure to keep an ice pack handy and stick to soft foods, things will go a lot smoother.
Oral surgery in Nashville isn’t as scary as you might think, so talk to your dentist today about the options available to you! Contact us today.