What is the Success Rate of Gum Grafting Surgeries?

When people talk of dental health, hardly do they account for the health of the gums. Dental care should not always be about preventing dental cavities. Further, dental care for your gums should not only be about preventive gingivitis and periodontitis. Instead, the health of your gums should also focus on how properly they support your teeth. The goal is to avoid both receded gums and a gummy smile.

What Is Gum Grafting?

It refers to different types of oral surgeries done to restore the health of your gums. Ideally, gum grafting in Poway is for treating receded gums. If your dentist recommends this procedure, it means that your gums are not amply supporting your teeth. Instead, they pull further away from your teeth, which may eventually expose the roots of your teeth if it hasn’t already. Some of the reasons why your gums may be receding include the following:

1. Gum disease – when gingivitis worsens and turns into periodontitis
2. Wearing braces for a long time
3. Having a naturally thin gum tissue
4. Certain health problems that compromise the health of your gums
5. Long-term aggressive brushing of teeth

What Does Gum Grafting Entail?

​Gum grafting processes involve surgery to put new tissues in your gums to restore the receding gums. In many cases, patients who need gum grafting already have receded gums, sometimes too severe that it is problematic for their dental health. The procedure can be performed through three main approaches called connective tissue graft, pedicle graft, and gingival graft. Two of the approaches work similarly, removing a gum graft from the roof of your mouth or a donor source and using it to replace the damaged gum tissue in your gum line. The only difference between the approaches is regarding the type of graft chosen. The connective graft focuses on a deeper layer of tissue than the gingival graft. The pedicle graft, however, uses the tissue from the area of your gums that is receding. Either way, the gum grafting process entails the following steps:

1. Numbing and sedation – To help you remain calm during your procedure. The local anesthesia used will ensure that you undergo painless surgery.
2. Harvesting the gum graft – Depending on the method that your periodontist determines. Sometimes the graft comes from your mouth, while other times, your dentist will outsource it from a human donor or a synthetic source.
3. Restoring your gums – The graft is placed on the ailing portion of your gums and connected with the rest of the gum tissue. The goal of this procedure is to encourage the generation of new tissues to replace the damaged ones.

Are Gum Grafting Procedures Successful?

While it may sound scary to undergo this kind of surgery, you have nothing to fear. Gum grafting surgeries have a success rate of up to 90%. Besides, with local anesthesia, you should not experience any pain during your treatment.

Afterward, your dentist will prescribe pain medication to help you manage your soreness after the numbing wears off. You may feel sore for a couple of days, but it should get better as your mouth heals. You may have to change your meals to soft foods only, especially the first week after your surgery. Brushing your teeth may also be uncomfortable, especially around the treated area. You may want to take it easy with such processes during the first week of recovery.

Overall, having any complications after gum grafting surgeries is a rare occurrence. The only complaint patients have regards swelling, soreness, and bleeding. Your pain medication should help with the pain. The swelling also goes down by itself after two or three days. Regarding bleeding, you should not notice a lot of blood in your mouth. Anything other than pinkish saliva when you spit that looks alarming should be reported to your dentist.

Summary

You won’t always know that you need gum grafting surgery. During your routine dental exams, Our emergency dentist near you will check the health of your gums to conclude that you need surgery to restore your gums. Other than that, consider indicators like:

1. Sensitive teeth
2. Exposed tooth roots
3. Bleeding gums
4. Reddened and swollen gums
5. Shaky or wobbly teeth