See How We Approach Oral Surgery
A lot of times with oral surgery, we’ve got teeth that are … they can be broken down. Maybe they’re rotated, maybe they’re impacted. With teeth that are compromised or just didn’t erupt in the right way, it’s harder for the patient to keep their oral hygiene clean, to take care of the teeth around it. I’ve seen cases where maybe it was an impacted wisdom tooth. That tooth was unable for the patient to clean that tooth, and it actually decayed, and it caused the tooth in front of it to decay. They lost that tooth in front of it just because it had decayed so far that it almost completely undermined the whole crown of that tooth.
Oral surgery, you’re able to go in there and remove the wisdom tooth before it affects another tooth. Same thing with other teeth that may be severely compromised. Maybe it’s a front tooth, and the patient’s in a lot of pain and it’s hard to clean that tooth. Maybe the tooth is sharp, jagged. Oral surgery, we’re able to go in there and remove that tooth. Maybe even give them something like a flipper, an implant crown, something like that to restore it as well.
The good thing about oral surgery is I’ve actually had training in this. I did a residency after my dental school for a year where I got a lot of hands-on experience supervised by oral surgeons. I’m able to do techniques that maybe patients in the past have had traumatic experiences – ‘Oh, that dentist was really yanking on my tooth. I don’t know, but it was really scary.’ I try to be as gentle as possible. But in a lot of cases, patients are like, ‘Wow, I didn’t even know that it could be done. I was always used to getting my teeth yanked on. But you took that tooth out. I didn’t really feel any pressure.’ That’s the beauty of oral surgery and knowing how to do it right.