Arresting Periodontitis:
Keeping Your Teeth For Life

Surgery is done for four general reasons in a periodontal office:

1. to prepare natural teeth and gums for crowns, bridges and to for restoration of natural teeth
2. to repair soft tissue defects around natural teeth
3. to provide foundations for replacement teeth, such as implants
4. to aid in the process of arresting periodontitis

As we learn more about periodontal diseases, we have been using less surgery to arrest the bone loss process and now have many more predictable results in establishing life time tooth replacement. In general, over the last two decades, surgical technique and pain management techniques have been refined to produce a much less dramatic post surgical experience. For instance, repairing recession used to result in two weeks of painful recovery. Now changes in the surgical technique have dramatically improved comfort and predictable root coverage. With implant placement and associated surgeries we now expect tooth replacements to last for a life time.  After surgery we can predictably expect only minor soreness, swelling and bleeding.