Archive for the ‘ Blog ’ Category

In a recent article in the JOMS, researcher found that the shape of an implant does have an impact on the level of post-operative pain.  As expected the more the implant mimic the shape of the root of a tooth, the less that was noted by the patients!  This was assumed for many year but […]

Many patients ask us this question, but the more recent data is showing us that it is not necessary to stop all the “anti-platelet” medications such as Aspirin.  See the reference to the article below HOWEVER, we always recommend that patients ask their Primary Care Physician (PCP) that placement them on such medications and let […]

Implant Peri-apical lesion: This is an inflammatory lesion at the tip of the implant.  This is a really rare phenomenon and it occurs n 0.24% of the time.  IPL  can sometimes be confused with peri-implantitis, which is something completely different. Recently implant surgeons have used Guided Bone Regeneration (GBR) to address this.   A combination of surgical […]

Many patients that present top our office desiring an implant, do not have enough bone to do so.  This is especially true if the tooth was extracted without bone grafting at the time of extraction…this is the reason why we always recommend that you ask the person doing the extraction about bone grafting, especially if […]

  Arnold schwarzenegger may you think that biceps or thigh muscles are the strongest muscles in the body, but actually it is not. The strongest muscle based on its weight is the masseter. With all muscles of the jaw working together it can close the teeth with a force as great as 55 pounds (25 […]

What are all the different tooth numbering system?  Practicing in San Francisco, we get patients that get referred to us from all across the world for their oral surgical needs.  When we ask for their charts however, on most occasions the teeth numbers do not match up with our numbering system in the US: The […]

Being a physician, at times we field calls from the local dentist asking for urgent help with their patients that may have swallowed a dental instrument, crown or a healing abutment that was not torqued down after impression taking.   This is why it is so critical to torque-down anything and everything that sits on […]

In the dental implant world we know that smoking is detrimental to the success rates of implants.  Some go as far as not placing implants in active smokers.  Well, now we have to contend with e-cigarettes.  Some of the early research on E-cigarettes is showing that even this once thought “benign” habit is actually more […]

  Everyday, we have patients that question the need for bone grafting.  So what is bone grafting and why is it necessary?  The main goal of bone grafting an extraction site, its to converse the architecture of the jaw bone and the soft-tissue aka “gums or gingiva” that covers it.  There are numerous studies that […]