subject: You Should Know About Dental surgery [print this page] You Should Know About Dental surgery You Should Know About Dental surgery
Dental surgery stands for any kind of modification or procedure that involves dentition. Hence, it includes all dental procedures that are performed by surgeons and dentists. There are several kinds of dental surgeries that involve all the various parts of the teeth, jawbone and gum.
Some of these surgeries involve modifications to the structure of the teeth or jawbone. It is either done to make the teeth look better or to take care of a badly positioned teeth that is creating problems for the patient. Although dental procedures that fall under cosmetic dentistry are not officially recognized as dental surgeries, they too might involve complicated procedures that modify or change the appearance of teeth.
Other than that, dental surgeries also take care of the various prosthetic attachments that are used to correct certain dental conditions. These include things like crowns, veneers, bridges, implants and dentures. Crowns act as caps to teeth and are made out of materials that play well with the human body like porcelain, ceramic, gold or a tin/aluminum alloy. The underlying tooth has to be carved and modified in order to fit crowns.
Veneers are another kind of artificial covering for the teeth but where a crown might be used to reshape and reconstruct a broken tooth, veneers are usually used for making teeth look good. Bridges are crowns that are connected together in order to replace a missing tooth. Most commonly used after a tooth extraction.
Implants are actually bases for many other dental prosthetics. These create the base on top of which the prosthetics sits. They are fitted right inside the jawbone and are allowed to heal for about 4-6 months. During this time, the bone and the gum heal around the implant and make it a part of the body. After this period, the prosthetics is fitted on to it.
Dentures are used to replace multiple missing teeth. Commonly seen in the elderly, these are fitted into the mouth using either implants or by making them stay in place with the help of neighboring teeth.
One very well known dental surgery is the root canal treatment. In this treatment, the pulp inside the tooth is removed completely to combat infection. The top of the tooth is drilled into and the pulp is completely removed from inside the tooth. After this, the vacant pulp chamber is disinfected and is filled with a special rubber based solution to fill up the gap and support the structure. Then the top of the tooth is fitted with a crown. However, sometimes even the root fiber of the tooth has to be removed to clear off an infection, this falls within the root canal procedure. Sometimes the fibers around the tooth are severed in order to save it from a relapse.
In fact, even the simple tooth extraction also falls under dental surgery. So, it covers a fairly vast array of procedures that are done on the teeth.
