Victoria bone grafting, does your implant site need it
Bone grafting is not one procedure. Which one applies depends on whether the ridge lost width, lost height under a sinus, or is about to lose either because a tooth is coming out. This section splits bone grafting along those three situations.
Three bone grafting situations, three different pages
If a tooth has been gone for years and the ridge has narrowed inward, the problem is width and the page is Ridge Augmentation. If it is an upper back molar and the sinus has dropped into the space, the problem is height and the page is Sinus Lift Surgery.
If the tooth is still in your mouth and coming out soon, you are in the best position of the three, because the loss has not happened yet. Socket Preservation keeps most of what you have for a fraction of what rebuilding it later costs.
And if you simply want to understand what graft material is and how it turns into your own bone, start with Dental Bone Graft.
Where to begin
What to expect
How the bone grafting question actually gets answered
Nobody can tell by looking
A ridge can look adequate from above and be too narrow to hold a post. This is measured, never estimated.
The scan gives millimetres
Height and width at the site in numbers, plus where the nerve and sinus sit. That is what decides it.
You see the same images
We show you the cross section on screen. A grafting recommendation should be something you can see, not just be told.
Then it is priced separately
If a graft is needed it appears as its own line with its own months, not folded silently into the implant fee.
Grafting treatments
Different Victoria sites need different bone grafts
Four procedures covering the common reasons a site cannot take a post as it stands.
Work from your situation rather than the procedure name. Tooth still present and coming out soon: socket preservation. Long standing gap in the lower or front jaw: ridge augmentation. Upper back molar space: sinus lift. If you are unsure, the general bone graft page covers the shared ground.
Not reliably. How long the tooth has been gone is a rough guide, but plenty of old gaps hold enough bone and some recent ones do not. Without imaging it cannot be answered in either direction.
No. It means an extra stage and several extra months, not that the treatment is unsuitable. Grafting is routine, and a post placed in rebuilt bone behaves very much like one placed in bone that was never lost.
It varies enormously with the size of the defect, which is why it is quoted after the scan rather than before. A small socket graft at the time of an extraction is a modest addition; rebuilding a ridge that has been empty for a decade is a procedure in its own right.
Yes, and we show you the measurements so you can see why. A scan sometimes shows there is more bone than expected, and the graft comes off the plan. The scan is what settles it either way.
Victoria patients
What Victoria patients say about the grafting stage
★★★★★4.9· 118 reviews on Google
★★★★★
Upper back molar with almost no bone under the sinus. The lift added months but the post went in solidly afterwards.
B. Castellano
Sinus lift patient, Victoria
★★★★★
Told me the graft was needed on one site and not the other. I had assumed it would be both.
D. Ashworth
Ridge graft patient, Langford
★★★★★
Had the graft placed the same day the tooth came out. Meant less work later, which they explained at the time.
C. Nakamura
Socket preservation, Colwood
★★★★★
Two visits rather than one, which I had not allowed for. Worth it for a post that sits properly.
M. Halloran
Graft then implant, Saanich
From the blog
Victoria implant guides: grafting, healing time and cost
Get the site measured for bone grafting in Victoria
A consultation and CBCT scan give the bone height and width at your site in millimetres. You will see the cross section, hear which of the three situations applies, and get the added time and cost in writing if any is needed.
