Bone Grafting

When a Gilbert patient is missing a single tooth or multiple teeth, the jawbone around these areas will shrink in size (height and width) over time due to lack of stimulating forces from chewing. The longer the tooth or teeth have been absent, the more pronounced the bone shrinkage can become. When this occurs, there often is inadequate bulk of bone to support the place of dental implants to replace the missing teeth. These patients will not be acceptable candidates for dental implants treatment unless the amount of bone in these areas is increased by grafting procedures. Your bone can be “bulked up”, so to speak. Other grafting options include using sterile cadaver bone form human donors, or chemically-engineered synthetic “bone substitutes” that are commercially available and work well in certain situations.