Alveolar onlay grafts may be necessary to recreate bony size for a dental implant in areas where teeth have been missing for a long time, or where an infected tooth has caused destruction of the bone in the area. Most often, we will use your own bone (usually from the wisdom tooth or chin areas) and closely fit the graft to lie over the area of bone deficiency. Onlay bone grafts are then fixed to the underlying bone with special bone screws which will be removed when your dental implant is placed. In cases where a very large deficit of bone is present, your surgeon can take large bone grafts from other areas (such as the hip) in order to reconstruct your jaw bone. Your oral surgeon has years of hospital-based training in order to provide you with the latest in safe, comfortable care.

Normally, several months are allowed for the bone graft to heal and fuse with the underlying jaw bone. When this healing is complete, your oral surgeon will place the dental implant and follow your healing until your restoration is ready to be made by your family dentist. When you and your oral surgeon are considering any bone grafting procedure, please ask any questions that you may have. Our goal is not only to provide excellent surgical care, but to completely inform you about all aspects of your treatment.