You may be wondering what kinds of dental conditions that oral surgeons handle and this is a good question to ask. Oral surgeons take care of serious dental issues that cannot be handled by a dentist. One of their regular tasks is to remove wisdom teeth that are impacted and causing the patient problems with swelling, intense pain, or even infections. Because the wisdom teeth are stuck, a regular dentist cannot simply pull them out. This requires the experience and training of an oral surgeon since they need to cut into the tissue in order to remove them. Wisdom teeth can even be stuck in a sideways position above regular teeth, making extraction more delicate.
Another common issue that oral surgeons deal with is problems involving the jaw such as a set of jaws that have not grown correctly, TMJ problems, and correcting the jaw line if someone is preparing to wear dentures. The oral surgeon will take x-rays of the patient’s jaw and then decide which surgical method is the best way to deal with the issue at hand. Sometimes, this may require the removal of part of the jaw in order to correct a serious overbite while other times, the oral surgeon may have to correctly align both jaw bones. When it comes to TMJ issues, an oral surgeon can operate on the TMJ joint to relieve a patient of serious problems.
If you were in an accident, and suffered broken bones in your face, then it is likely that you would be sent to an oral surgeon. Oral surgeons have the ability to reconstruct facial bones and may even be able to put in a replacement bone if the bone has been shattered from the impact. In fact, it would not hurt to have an oral surgeon in mind just in case you need one for any kind of unexpected problem like the one already mentioned. Click here to know more.
One type of medical problem that oral surgeons may also be involved with is cleft palates and cleft lips. It is not uncommon for an oral surgeon to be a member of the medical team working to correct these sorts of problems. This kind of issue is not easily fixed in one surgical procedure and, in fact, may require several visits to an Westfield Oral Surgery. In addition to cleft palates and lips, oral surgeons also handle any kind of serious infection that has formed in the face, especially if it is related to a specific tooth.
