Dental extraction is the removal of a tooth from its socket in the bone. If a tooth has been broken or damaged by decay, initially we will try to fix it with a filling, crown or other treatment.
Sometimes, though, there’s too much damage for the tooth to be repaired. In such cases, the next step is to go in for a dental extraction.
The types of extraction that we do are:
- A simple extraction is performed on a tooth that can be seen in the mouth.. Most of these can be done using just an injection (a local anesthetic), with or without anti-anxiety drugs. In a simple extraction, your tooth will be grasped with forceps and loosened by moving the forceps back and forth. Then the tooth will be pulled out.
Sometimes a dental elevator will be used to help loosen the tooth. This is an instrument that fits between the tooth and the gum.
- A surgical extraction involves teeth that cannot be seen easily in the mouth. They may have broken off at the gum line or they may not have come in yet. To see and remove the tooth, we will have to cut and pull back the gums. Pulling back the gum “flap” provides access to remove bone and/or a piece of the tooth.
Sometimes it is necessary to cut the tooth into pieces to remove it. Surgical extraction is done with local anesthesia or sometimes under general anesthesia.
