Not Enough Bone?

Not having enough bone can be a contraindication for dental implants.  However, in many cases, bone can be augmented to allow placement of an adequately sized dental implants.  Bone augmentation or grafting can be risky and unpredictable sometimes.

If there is not enough width of bone in the upper jaw, bone can be augmented quite easily.  I should not say augmented because I am going to talk about bone expansion in the upper jaw.  The upper jaw or maxilla is quite easy to expand at the time of dental implant placement.  After adequate anesthesia, or numbing, the gum is separated from the underlying bone at the implant site.  Then, the bone is drilled as in a standard case, but before reaching the final drilling diameter, the bone width is sequentially expanded using expanding screws.  The diameter of the proposed implant size and available bone will determine the exact sizes of the expanding screws to be used.  Then final drill is used before the insertion of dental implants.

Bone expansion in the lower jaw is not quite predictable because the lower jaw bone is too dense and hard for gentle expansion.  Will all upper jaw cases require and or allow bone expansion?  May be not.  Ask your dentist more about bone expansion in the upper jaw.