Sometimes, patients don’t have sufficient jaw health for us to perform a procedure like dental implant surgery. Other times, we need a way to preserve jaw structure at the site of a wisdom tooth extraction. For cases like these, we utilize grafting technology to augment the jaw bone. Oral surgeons who use all-natural methods have long hailed grafting as a holy grail of holistic dentistry. In short, the process takes bone from one area of your body and grafts it onto another. This method is practically guaranteed to have a successful outcome with the biocompatibility of the materials used.
Many dental procedures today involve bone grafting. There are a number of choices of grafting materials with which patients may be familiar. These grafting materials work to restore the bone supporting teeth and dental implants.
In particular, dentin grafts performed by a holistic oral surgeon offer several advantages for the patient. But first, let’s take a look at different sources for grafting.
Different Sources of Dental Bone Grafts
There are several standard sources of boney material used in jaw augmentation. The options for bone grafting include:
- Dentin graft– an autograft with the patient’s tooth as the source
- Autograft– from the patient’s own bone
- Allograft– from human bone
- Xenograft– from a cow’s bone
- Alloplast– from natural (hydroxyapatite) or synthetic sources
Autografts have been long considered the gold standard for bone grafting because it uses the patient’s native material. This is always preferred to using foreign bone tissue. However, an autograft requires a second site to obtain the graft, which requires another procedure and may cause additional pain.
The newest and most holistic type of jaw bone graft that’s changing all that is called dentin grafting. Dentin grafting can eliminate the need for a second surgical site for the graft harvest, or the need to use cadaver or cow grafting materials, etc. Holistic dental surgeons everywhere praise dentin grafting as a top method for all-natural oral surgeries for a number of reasons. It’s highly biocompatible, reduces the risk of disease transmission, and decreases the need for multiple surgical sites.
Understanding the Advantages of Dentin Grafting
With dentin grafting, about ten minutes is needed to prepare the graft for placement. Once the tooth that is being used as the graft source is removed and the external surface is cleaned, the Smart Dentin Grindergrinds the tooth into small particles. These particles are then cleaned and placed in the graft site by an experienced holistic oral surgeon. Once the dentin graft is placed, the magic begins to happen.
Since the graft is from the patient and contains living cells, the graft immediately gets to work once the oral surgeon applies it. Dentin grafting is a great way to recycle extracted tooth tissue, eliminate the need for a harvesting procedure, and optimize the chances of the graft succeeding in helping the jaw to restore strength.
Dentin grafting performed by a local dentistry surgeon who practices holistic methods is something of a marvel. The dentin extracted from the patient’s teeth is already highly biocompatible with the rest of their body since it came from them. With grafts from different sources, there’s a standing risk or rejection or even potentially infection.
In most other types of grafting, a holistic dentist surgeon has to source bone material from a separate site, leading to the patient having multiple surgical sites for one procedure. Dentin grafting, since it’s basically finely-ground tooth material, eliminates the need for a second or even third surgical site.
Not only that, but dentin grafting almost guarantees an affordable oral surgery that’s holistic. Without the need to purchase bone grafting materials (which might come from random cadavers), dentin grafting repurposes a patient’s own tooth material. It’s kind of like giving up your tooth to the tooth fairy. But instead, it’s a trusted holistic oral surgeon in your area, and they’re giving you back hundreds in savings instead of a measly five-dollar bill.
This advanced technology is utilized to regenerate bone around teeth and implants. If part of a graft is not used on the initial surgery day, it can be treated and stored for later use in the patient. That’s a big win. Didn’t use up all of the dentin? You’ve still got a one-way ticket to holistic dental surgery that won’t break the bank if you ever need it. Dentin grafts have demonstrated a high success rate; in one study, at 24 months post-graft surgery, there was a high rate of reabsorption resulting in new, healthy bone growth at the site.
Benefits & Downsides to Dentin Grafting
Dentin grafting performed by a holistic dental doctor is a leading practice in surgeries that require grafting. This new development in autologous jaw grafts offers several advantages to other graft sources:
- Faster bone healing
- Less expensive
- Less inflammation
- Lower soft tissue reaction
- Matchless biocompatibility with no immune response
- No risk of adverse reaction to foreign substances
- No second procedure to harvest the bone graft
- The cells are more analogous to cortical bone
However, not every dental bone graft works out, and people with certain conditions are at higher risk of graft failure than normal:
- Allergy to penicillin
- Bone disease
- Diabetes
- Immunocompromised
- Long-term prescription steroid use
- Radiation/chemotherapy
In addition, smoking hugely increases your risk of graft failure. Smoking inhibits healing processes by retarding the quality and strength of blood circulation. At the same time, it exposes your mouth tissues to toxic substances. In clinical settings, smoking has been linked to soft tissue necrosis at the graft site, anti-adhesion, and even exposure of the dental bone graft; 33% of smokers as opposed to less than 8% of non-smokers experienced these major complications.
Often, poor post-op care is the culprit of a dentin graft failing – their success rate is impressively high when the oral surgeon’s directions are followed. Dentin contains growth factors that are known to speed up healing and make recovery much more predictable. You’ll experience bone regeneration in no time when the post-op instructions your homeopathic dentist surgeon provides are closely followed. So, make sure to ask Dr. Puckett any and all questions you have before and after your dentin bone graft, and follow the post-op instructions we give you to a t. You’ll be all healed up in no time.
State-of-the-Art Dentin Grafting for the Cincinnati Area
As part of our patient-centered approach to holistic oral surgical care, Wilmington Oral Surgery is excited to offer dentin grafting. If you are interested in learning more about dentin grafting, you can find more information in our guides to dental bone grafting and dentin grafting.
Please use our online contact form or call our office at 937.382.8020 to schedule an appointment and consultation with our oral surgeon.
