What is a surgical tooth extraction?

 Today's post  (and a previous promise of mine) is the analysis of the secrets of surgical tooth extractions.We will see what that intails, which teeth are most likely to be surgically extracted and overall to  extract the mystery surrounding this dental treatment.
  Surgical extraction is the treatment of teeth or tooth roots that are so damaged  they can not be removed in the usual way from the mouth.So in this case we are forced to cut open the gum a little and remove some bone.
  
"Whoa,Whoa Doctor. You mentioned too many new words and ugly pictures,and we  we did not understand one bit of it!

 Ok.Lets take it from the top,shall we?See the image below ?It is a mouth.

 

  Sorry, wrong picture.I ment to put a human mouth.
Here we are then

 

Now then,if any of these teeth need to be extracted,it is fairly simple to do so,because we have easy access to the teeth with our dental tools .

The sketch below depicts a wisdom tooth (third molar) which is impacted(meaning that the tooth is in the gums and not in the mouth).
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     Panoramic Dental x-ray

 
(Fig. 1)


 How it looks in the mouth of a patient

 

  (Fig. 2)

In order to extract this tooth,we have to cut open a part of the gum (or to put it medically "to perform an incision") and remove a small part of the surrounding bone,so that we can free the tooth,and then execute the well known extraction procedures we are well aware of from the previous post.

 Below is a video very helpful for the understanding of my words.We begin the video having on our minds the situation of the patient that is shown in Fig.2.

You see that we made an insision,we retracted the gum,we released the tooth,and we sutured the gums to help with the healing process.

If the tooth was further impacted we would have to remove the bone sourrounding the tooth a bit,but the process would be about the same.And to convince you,here is another animation about the extraction of a tooth further impacted in the mouth.

In this video the tooth was cut in half (bisected) to makethe extraction easier.

The same procedure is followed in all cases where a tooth is not easily accessible due to severe damage from dental decay or there is very little of the crown of the tooth left  or because the tooth is still impacted in the gums.

  A necessary procedure for tooth extractions,and of paramount interest in surgical extraction is the radiographic imaging of the region, ie the dental x-ray.  I believe that  a panoramic x-ray as the one shown in  Fig.1 is needed or an even more detailed radioografic test , to show us the direct connection of sensitive anatomical parts of the area in relation to the soon-to-be-extracted-tooth. The decision on the type of radiography is being made by the dentist who will perform the extraction.
  Who does surgical extractions?Surgical extraction can be performed by the general dentist, if he is familiar with the technique or by a specialized dentist ie an oral surgeon or maxillofacial surgeon or even a periodontist.
After the extraction,toy should be very careful about a few thing.We will list them in a following post

  I hope I've helped a bit in solving the mystery surrounding the surgical extraction of teeth.
Don't forget to smile!