Tooth Extraction

When any tooth has been damaged by trauma or decay, your Canberra Dentist will present to you all the possible restore options such as filling, crown or root canal treatment. In many cases, these procedures are successful in saving the tooth, but if enough tooth structure has been destroyed to render the tooth unrecoverable, extracting the tooth may be the only other option. Your Canberra dentist will inform you after looking at the X-ray and examining your mouth, which approach would be most likely. Please bear in mind that sometimes, it is not until your Canberra Dentist makes a start that the Dentist will know the approach that is going to be necessary, and should the tooth awkwardly fracture when attempting a simple extraction, the Dentist would need to progress to a sectional or surgical extraction to remove the tooth or in some cases, refer you to an Oral Surgeon for the completion of the tooth removal.

There are three types of tooth extractions or tooth removal:

Simple tooth extraction: The dentist is able to remove the tooth in a single piece- that is the whole tooth, the crown and all of the roots. This is by far the most common tooth extraction procedure.

Sectional tooth extraction: Sometimes the tooth will not come out all in one piece because of the shape or directions of the roots, or because of the amount of decay in the tooth. In these circumstances, the roots of the tooth have be separated by cutting in between them with a bur. This allows each root to be taken out individually. Generally, this type of extraction relates to teeth that have more than one root – that’s all upper and lower molars and the upper 1st premolar.

Surgical tooth extraction: If the tooth to be removed is particularly very difficult, then a surgical approach may be needed. This is the case, if the tooth either hasn’t come fully through the gum yet (i.e. impacted), or has broken off below the gum line and the dentist can’t remove it by normal methods. The procedure involves reflecting your gum (raising a flap) to expose the bone that is holding in your tooth or root. Some of this bone will be then removed with a bur, just enough to allow the dentist to be able to lever out the tooth or root fragment. Sometimes the roots may also need to be separated as described above. The gum flap will then need to be replaced and held together by stitches, to allow healing.

Some common reasons for the extraction or removal of teeth include:
-Tooth is very loose or mobile and shaking all over the place
-Baby teeth or extra teeth in the mouth are blocking other teeth from growing in
-Address orthodontic issues such as to make room for orthodontic treatment and the shifting of teeth
-Abscessed or infected or decayed tooth
-Advanced stage of Periodontal disease (Periodontitis or Gum Disease) wherein there is not much holding the tooth in place
-Dental Trauma
-Impacted or problematic wisdom teeth

Frequently asked question is how much is a tooth removal cost or tooth extraction cost or cost of tooth extraction or cost of tooth removal ?
The cost of a tooth extraction or tooth removal can range from $250 to $550, depending on both the location of the tooth and the complexity of the tooth removal / extraction procedure.

Tooth extraction is considered a ‘last resort’.