Our goal as dental professionals is the maintenance of our patient's teeth. However, it is sometimes necessary to extract a tooth, or multiple teeth.  This may be due to significant disease of the tooth (or teeth) or surrounding "gums", a non-restorable fracture of a tooth, or the removal of a tooth (or teeth) is required as part of the overall treatment plan.

A dental implant is often advised as the replacement for the extracted tooth; in such cases the tooth extraction is in essence the first phase of the implant treatment.  It is very important that the bone surrounding the tooth is preserved during the extraction, as this bone will be the foundation for the dental implant.

The extraction of the tooth, and especially in the case of multi-rooted teeth such as molars, will often entail a small incision in the surrounding gum tissue and cutting of the tooth and / or surrounding bone.  We will often use a piezosurgical device to loosen the tooth root with minimal loss of  bone.

This procedure is routinely done using profound local anaesthesia.  Some patients may wish to utilize some modality of sedation as well.  We utilize oral sedatives in such cases.

We will most often place a surgical dressing and sutures to help stabilize a solid blood clot which is the first stage of healing.  Appropriate medication for discomfort will be advised / prescribed.