Although your team at Dental Town always works to save your natural teeth, there are times when an extraction might be required. This may be because of damage or decay, crowding, infection, or periodontal disease.
What Can I Expect During a Tooth Extraction?
Before pulling your tooth, your dental professional will provide anesthesia to numb the space in which the tooth is removed.
If your tooth is impacted, the dental professional will cut out bone and gum tissue which covers the tooth then with forceps, grasp your tooth and softly rock it, in order to loosen it from your ligaments and jaw bone which hold it into place. A hard-to-pull tooth sometimes has to be extracted in pieces.
Once your tooth is pulled, a clot typically forms inside the socket. The dental professional packs a gauze pad inside the socket and has you bite down on it in order to aid in stopping the bleeding. The dentist sometimes places a few sutures — generally self-dissolving — to shut the gum corners over the removal site.
The blood clot inside the socket sometimes breaks loose and exposes the bone within the socket. It’s an uncomfortable condition referred to as a dry socket. If it happens, the dentist likely will place a sedative dressing over your socket for a couple of days to protect it as a brand-new clot form.