Ridge Augmentation Can Prevent Periodontal Complications

Well, what ridge augmentation is, is to try to recreate the structure that's been lost through reabsorption of the bone over time. Say a person comes in and is wanting dental implants and they had been missing, say, for example, their lower posterior teeth, which are the molars. Well, people don't realize, they think they have plenty of time to seek help for dental implants. What they don't realize is when the teeth are missing, that the body slowly resorbs bone over time, and usually, it's the width of the bone. It can be the height, but when the width diminishes, when we place implants, we don't have enough width to place the implant in. And that's what patients have to understand, that an implant is basically a screw. And that screw is going to have a diameter and a length. And that we have to have the structure to place the implant. So we can talk to them about ridge augmentation techniques, which are basically bone grafting techniques, to recreate what's been lost. And that may take several months before an attempt at placing the implant is performed.