Ridge preservation is a procedure to maintain the patient’s jaw bone following tooth extraction.
When you need to have a tooth or teeth extracted—whether it be due to decay, abscess, gum disease or injury—it is usually in your best interest to do so in a manner which preserves as much of your underlying jawbone as possible. From the time the teeth are removed, significant degeneration of the surrounding bone begins to take place. The amount of shrinkage is unpredictable. Many times the amount of remaining bone shrinks rapidly at first, followed by a more slowly progressing shrinking that occurs over the years afterwards. This shrinking is a natural process, but it is an undesirable result of tooth removal.
Careful management of extraction sockets after tooth extraction prevents unsightly bone loss and provides a better cosmetic outcome for tooth replacement.