Tooth Extractions

We Handle Extractions Smoothly & Comfortably

At Flawless Smiles Dentistry, we always want to help patients to keep their healthy, natural teeth for life. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the right thing to help patients maintain their optimal level of oral health. When necessary, our skilled dentistry team offers both surgical and nonsurgical tooth extraction for Claremore dental patients. These treatments are only recommended when absolutely necessary to preserve oral health. If you want to learn more about tooth extraction or dental restoration options, call our Claremore dental office to schedule an appointment today. We’ll be happy to help you repair your damaged teeth and recreate a flawless smile.

Common Reasons for Tooth Extraction

We’ll do what we can to repair and preserve healthy tooth structures, but there are many cases where tooth extraction is necessary to help patients maintain their oral health. Some of the common reasons we recommend tooth extraction include:

• Severe tooth decay or damage that destroys too much of the tooth for dental restoration to be possible.
• Primary, baby, teeth that don’t fall out on their own.
• To prepare for orthodontic treatment where severe crowding may prevent teeth from moving.
• To prepare for the design and placement of dentures.
• Third molars, wisdom teeth, are the most often removed teeth due to their late eruption.

Wisdom Teeth

Wisdom teeth are extracted for a variety of reasons. The most common is simply lack of space along the jawline for this third set of molars. These teeth were a necessary part of the anatomy for our ancient human ancestors whose coarse diet and inadequate oral hygiene led to advanced tooth loss by the late teens or early 20s. However, our processed diets and improved oral hygiene have made this third set of molars almost completely unnecessary. For this reason, patients may not have room within their smiles for wisdom teeth, which can lead to crowding, shifting teeth out of alignment, or causing impaction (teeth that are unable to fully erupt). To preserve oral health, we may recommend the removal of wisdom teeth.

The Tooth Extraction Process

Depending on whether or not your tooth has fully erupted, we may need to “pull” the tooth or surgically extract it. Pulling is only possible if a tooth has fully emerged from the gum line. Once the tooth has erupted, we use tools to shift it back and forth until it breaks free from the supportive structures. Surgical extractions may involve cutting away soft tissue to reveal additional tooth structure, drilling into supportive alveolar bone, and even breaking the tooth into smaller pieces, depending on your unique situation.

Caring for Your Smile After Tooth Removal

Following the extraction of one or more teeth, we’ll provide you with specific aftercare instructions for your unique circumstances. The basics to keep in mind include:

• Diet – only consume liquids or very soft foods for the first 48 hours. Then, begin to gradually incorporate more difficult to chew foods as you feel able. Do not chew near the extraction site as it heals.
• Hygiene – for the first 48 hours, you should keep the area clean by keeping gauze in place over the extraction site and replace this gauze every few hours or as it becomes saturated. After the first two days, bleeding should be minimal, and you shouldn’t need gauze any longer. You should gently brush your teeth, but you should avoid irritating the tooth extraction site. We may provide you with a prescription mouth rinse to reduce the number of plaque-producing bacteria and decrease risk for infection.
• Pain management – you should take prescription or over the counter pain relievers as directed to minimize discomfort. You can also use ice packs at 20 minute intervals (20 on and 20 off) to relieve pain and reduce inflammation.

Schedule a Tooth Extraction in Claremore or Broken Arrow!

Whichever kind of tooth extraction you need, wisdom tooth or otherwise, Flawless Smile Dentistry is here to help. To ask questions or to schedule an appointment, contact us today at either of our office locations!

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