The Difference between a Dentist and an Oral Surgeon.

A beautiful smile and good oral hygiene are two things people notice when meeting someone for the first time. A healthy smile can instill confidence in someone and lead others to make positive assumptions about them. Sometimes the journey toward a healthy smile requires an oral surgeon.

At HollowBrook Dental, our goal is to help you achieve a healthy, beautiful smile. In addition to highly qualified dentists and hygienists, we have one of the best oral surgeons in Colorado Springs!

Your dentist is an excellent primary care provider for all your basic dental needs. Oral surgeons specialize in diagnosing, treating, and performing surgery to address injuries and issues in the hard and soft oral tissues. They primarily operate on the mouth, teeth, jaws, and face.

Many people first visit an oral surgeon to have their wisdom teeth removed. There are other common procedures that oral surgeons perform to help create or maintain a healthy smile throughout your life.

If a patient’s teeth do not grow in properly, it can cause dental issues like a misaligned bite, crowding, and infections. Oral surgeons often extract teeth to create enough space and maintain healthy teeth and gums.

When parts of a baby’s mouth and nasal cavity don’t grow together properly, it leaves a gap in the roof of the mouth or the lip (or sometimes both). An oral surgeon needs to repair the cleft lip or palate so the infant can nurse or drink from a bottle properly.

Oral surgeons are the experts that do dental implants. They surgically place titanium rods into the jawbone. Artificial teeth then attach directly to the titanium rods to replace missing, damaged, or dead teeth.

Oral surgeons also help fit people’s dentures more comfortably and ensure the jaw bone is healthy enough to support the dentures. Some people need bone grafts on the jaw.

If your upper and lower jaw do not develop properly, it can cause difficulty or pain chewing, talking, or swallowing. Sometimes, oral surgeons must perform jaw surgery to correct the jawbones and prevent other oral health issues.

If a patient has a broken bone in the face, an oral surgeon can ensure the bone heals properly and doesn’t cause damage or infections in the surrounding teeth and gums.

There are many other situations where an oral surgeon is necessary to help patients have healthy teeth, gums, and jaws. HollowBrook Dental offers the best oral surgery services to our Colorado Springs patients. Contact us today to learn more and schedule an appointment.