When a tooth becomes impacted, this could lead to major pain and complications for your smile’s health, function, and stability. While this could happen for a number of reasons, your Santa Rosa , CA, oral surgeons can bracket the tooth and restore alignment to your smile. In today’s blog, we’re going to talk about possible solutions.
The Causes of an Impacted Tooth
An impacted tooth means that it doesn’t erupt fully and join the rest of your smile, with some of the structure remaining below the surfaces of the gums. The causes vary. For example, a baby tooth could have trouble erupting due to issues with the size of the jaw, or a permanent tooth could also remain partially trapped due to issues with the size and shape of the jaw, or factors such as misalignment, delayed loss of premature teeth, or other issues that block the path of the permanent tooth. If wisdom teeth are allowed to arrive and not removed, they could find little room in your smile and remain partially obstructed.
Dangers for Your Smile
These issues could impact the alignment of your smile, increasing the risk of crooked, crowded, or overlapping teeth. Misalignment alone could increase the likelihood of tooth decay and gum disease. The impacted teeth could also cause damage or infection in other teeth, as well as painful aches and sensitivity. To protect your smile from these complications, we may need to remove the tooth in question, or bracket it to bring it in alignment with the rest of your smile.
Planning Your Treatment
To plan the process, we will take detailed CT scans of your smile using iCAT technology. These images enable us to carefully plan your treatment and gain a clear picture of your impacted tooth. From there, we decide whether we need to simply extract the tooth in question, or try to bracket it.
Bracketing the Tooth
After we plan the process and administer sedation to ensure you remain comfortable, our team will then lift the bone and gum on top of the tooth to access it. An orthodontic bracket will then be affixed to the tooth, and attached to a small chain. Using eruptive force, the tooth will be pulled into position. The tooth will then be moved into optimal position and alignment, correcting the issue and restoring health, function, and comfort to your smile. If you have any questions about this process, then please give our team a call!
Do You Need Oral Surgery?
When you suffer from the impaction of one or more teeth, this could lead to serious problems for your smile. To learn more about bracketing a tooth, or to schedule a consultation, call Santa Rosa Oral Surgery in Santa Rosa, CA, today at 707-545-4625.
