Your bone and gum tissue should fit snugly around your teeth like a turtleneck around your neck. When you have periodontal disease, this supporting tissue and bone is destroyed, forming “pockets” around the teeth.
Over time, these pockets become deeper, providing a larger space for bacteria to live accumulate and advance under the gum tissue. These pockets can result in bone and tissue loss. Eventually, if too much bone is lost, the teeth will need to be extracted.
During a periodontal osseous surgery, the doctor gently lifts gum tissue away from the teeth, removes the disease-causing bacteria and resurfaces contaminated tooth root surfaces. before securing the tissue into place. In most cases, irregular surfaces of the damaged bone are reshaped to recreate normal bony contour. The result is to create a more hygienic architecture of the bone and soft tissues around the teeth and limit areas where disease-causing bacteria can hide. The goal of this treatment is to make deep difficult to clean diseased pockets healthy and easily maintainable with daily oral hygiene and routine professional cleaning. We typically accomplish this treatment in the office using sedative medication and local anesthetic.
In certain situations, pocket reduction surgery may not be appropriate for a variety of reasons. In many of these cases, treatment to regenerate lost bone and periodontal attachment may be appropriate. For more information see. Bone Regeneration with Growth Factors.