Blog

Ankylosis is a term used in dentistry when a tooth is directly bonded to its surrounding bone. Teeth that are ankylosed are more often difficult to extract than teeth that are not ankylosed. It is difficult to determine if a tooth or teeth is/are ankylosed prior to the oral surgery procedure using dental X-rays. By performing an oral examination to determine if the tooth has any visible movement, your City of London dentist can make a fairly good educated guess to determine if the tooth is ankylosed. If the tooth is ankylosed, there should be no visible or palpable movement. Usually when ankylosed teeth are extracted, a portion of the surrounding bone will crack and be removed together with the tooth. Your City of London dentist will check to see if there are remaining other sections of loose oral bone in the extraction socket or in the immediate vicinity of the extraction site. These pieces of bone and other splinters of bone should be removed during this surgical procedure, in order to expedite the healing process. If these loss sections of bone are not removed, healing will take longer and be more painful. The loose pieces of bone left in place will eventually exfoliate and more through the gum tissue until they reach the surface. If this occurs in the future, you may feel a splinter type projection on the gum tissue that can become rather painful, and should be removed. Your City of London dentist will take all precautions to make sure that your tooth removal experience is pleasant.