Do I Need A Dentist Or An Oral Surgeon?

While most people visit their nearest dentist for any teeth related issue, they might also have to look out for a reputed oral surgeon as well. When mainly talking about tooth extractions, people are often doubtful about “whether I have to go to an oral surgeon or a dentist?” The matter of tooth extraction shouldn’t be taken lightly, so it has to be important to select best provider for the situation, especially if this is about emergency procedure.

The most common reason for getting referred to a dental surgeon is because it isn’t possible now to get a simple extraction done by a dentist. These easy extractions are required when the tooth has been fully exposed from gums and it is possible to remove it with forceps that your dentist applies. However, if your tooth becomes broken in pieces or dentist has to go under the gums or the dentist must go under gums for fully extracting tooth, then surgery is required.

Both oral surgeons and dentists can easily perform extractions, so you’ll have to know about the right one that you have to select. The answer here would depend on the procedure that you require, and how much the total work is.

Beginning With the Procedure: Surgeon or a Dentist?

If you’ve got any teeth complication, the very first thing you must do is consult your dentist. There are a lot of dental service providers that offer additional hours services for patients with emergency requirements out of their typical working hours.

Firstly the dentist will make an evaluation of the entire situation for determining whether you require an extraction or not, and whether this is possible in office or not. The consultation procedure here would require an examination and x-ray of the tooth area that is affected.

From here on, your Santa Clarita dentist would update you on whether the extraction is possible or not? Or whether you’ll have to get referred to oral surgeon? This would be dependent on the fact whether the tooth is possible to remove through local anesthesia or novocaine, a lot of dentists can perform this procedure well in their office, or they would do it during your consultation.

In case your dentist refers you to visit oral surgeon, you might find it with the same dentist as a lot of dental offices have their own oral surgeons that they’re working with and they can simply refer them. Separate appointment might be required to get your teeth extracted from oral surgeon.

When Should You Refer to a Professional Oral Surgeon?

A lot of reasons can contribute to your visit to a professional oral surgeon.

Facial structure: If your teeth aren’t positioned appropriately inside your mouth, it would become quite difficult for a dentist to perform teeth extraction without making the patient uncomfortable. Various things such as large sinuses, or limited mobility of jaw would necessitate any extraction performed by oral surgeon.

Dental Anxiety: Regardless of the physical tooth situation, a lot of patients need to be put to sleep for extracting tooth as they develop dental anxiety. In such cases, patients require oral surgeon for administering general anesthesia. Avoid getting anesthesia from anyone who isn’t a trained practitioner as you can develop an adverse reaction.

Complications of extraction: Most of the dentists strive for perfection, but a lot of things can turn wrong at the time of a few extractions. If there are complex cracks or roots throughout the procedure, you may require a professional oral surgeon for completing the entire procedure correctly. In such cases, you will get referred to oral surgeon at the quickest for minimizing any discomfort and developing risk of further complications.

Teeth issues like crack or fracture: Teeth that are already going through complications such as fracture or crack are more likely to get broken that time of extraction. This would require more intensive surgery that is mostly similar to the one you see in impacted tooth.

Impacted patient teeth: If you’ve got teeth that get impacted or are quite below gum line, removing would become quite difficult instead of simply pulling these out. Typically the impacted teeth are wisdom teeth. The entire process would consist of providing general anesthesia to patient and cutting through the mouth for teeth removal. This is surgical procedure so getting it done through a professional trained surgeon is required for its successful completion.

Extraction of tooth: Tooth extraction is necessary when it catches disease and repair isn’t possible. When you’ve got tooth abscesses (especially when the infection reaches to the root) removal becomes necessary. Crowding can also lead to teeth extraction, as this can lead to issues related to surrounding teeth. Tooth injury can sometimes also demand for tooth extraction procedure that is done by a dental surgeon.

What a Dental Surgeon Does?

Before the process of pulling out the tooth starts, you will be provided with local anesthetic for numbing out the whole area from where you’re extracting the tooth. If you’re getting more than one teeth removed, (which quite often gets done in teeth removal procedure), the oral surgeon would provide you with general anesthetic for inducing sleep.

Throughout the whole process, the oral surgeon becomes responsible for gum removal and tissues of bone for covering tooth that is already underlying. Then, while forceps is used they pull your tooth free through connective tissue and jaw bone. As it was mentioned before, sometimes this occurs in various pieces if you’ve cracked a tooth due to an injury, or it has to get broken for making the removal process simple.

So now you’re only left out with a large hole where you once had your tooth, bleeding out was normal. Gauze got placed in such place, and sometimes oral surgeon would ask you for biting pressure to put a stop to bleeding. Typically stitches are put that either gets dissolved with time, or its gets removed later after you’re ready.

Whether your teeth requires a filling, root canal, implant placement, deep cleaning and soft tissue grafting bone. With that getting said all of such dental areas become quite complicated.

It would be quite hard for most dentists to be comfortable with all such procedures and you’ll eventually get referred to a licensed dental surgeon.

While visiting a dental surgeon, you’re in supervision of a professional who underwent specialty training and is backed by a lot of years of experience in performing the entire procedure and someone who is exposed to treating complications.