Why Do You Need Sinus Augmentation Before A Dental Implant Procedure?

If you want to have a dental implant fitted to replace a back tooth, then your dentist might tell you that you need to have a sinus augmentation procedure first. Why do you need this extra treatment? How does it work?

Why Do You Need Sinus Augmentation?

Regular dental implants need a specific bone density to work. Your dentist has to insert a post into the bone in your jaw to hold this kind of tooth. The post only embeds correctly and provides adequate support if you have enough bone to hold it.

If your bone density is too low, then your dentist can often use a graft to build up bone in the area. They put some of your own bone or an artificial alternative in the implant site. This bone will graft to your existing bone and increase its density.

However, a simple graft doesn't always work at the back of the mouth. Here, teeth sit under the sinuses. The sinuses are close to the bone above these teeth. They sometimes don't leave enough room to put in a simple graft.

If you don't have the right bone density for an implant at the back of your mouth, then sinus augmentation might be the only way you can proceed with a traditional dental implant. It bypasses your sinus placement problem.

How Does Sinus Augmentation Work?

A sinus augmentation procedure, also known as a sinus lift, has two parts. Your dentist's aim here is to move the sinuses up and insert a graft into your bone.

At the start of the procedure, your dentist opens up your gum, accesses the area above the bone, and then lifts up the sinus membrane that sits in this area. This lift effectively creates more space between your bone and the sinus above it.

This extra space gives your dentist enough room to insert a suitably sized bone graft. In some cases, they might insert a specialized membrane between the graft and your sinus membrane to keep everything in place until the graft bonds to your bone.

Your dentist then closes up your gum. You will have to wait for at least a few months to allow the graft to integrate with your bone. Once it has, your density will be at the right level to hold an implant post, and you can move on to the next stage of your treatment.

To find out more about how sinus augmentation works and how it affects dental implants, talk to your dentist.