Bone Grafting

Bone Grafting after tooth loss: Why it’s important.

  • To preserve the bone volume

  • To protect the bone of adjacent teeth

  • To avoid further tooth loss

  • To make possible restoration either by implant or bridge

The goal is to have your bone grow to fill the void left by tooth extraction and have no graft material remaining, just 100% of your bone. But not all grafts are created equal. By tradition, the most commonly used grafts are cadaver bone, cow bone or collagen, or pig product. Your bone does grow around these materials but only in an attempt to wall them off from you as they are recognized as a ‘foreign body’. “The Borg” assimilate but your body doesn’t. Years later, the graft material is still visible on X-ray. This is not normal bone.

Another popular graft is to extract blood from the patient, spin it into its separate components and use one of those layers to fill the extraction site. Depending on that there aren’t any bone-growing molecules in the blood. And, peer-reviewed research shows that six months after use, you can’t tell the difference between the blood-grafted site and one that wasn’t treated at all. A well-known French MD and his collaborator, and American PhD have promoted this but no longer claim it as ‘bone growning’. But the technique lives on. Great marketing! It also makes the dentist feel like a ‘real’ doctor because he/she is drawing blood and spinning it in a centrifuge.

So what do we use? A fully synthetic product (and the only one!) cleared by the FDA for:

  • Growing 100% pure patient bone without residual graft

  • Growing bone suitable for implant placement

Furthermore, bone growth starts immediately and is ready for implant placement in just one month. Not the usual 6-12 months advocated when cow, pig or human cadaver bone is used.

So what is this product?  Socket Putty by Steiner Bio (www.Steinerbio.com). Rather than paste and copy from Dr. Steiner’s website, please visit it. I have been using Socket Putty for nearly 10 years after following tradition and using cadaver bone. Implants don’t fail.  Bone fails and usually, it’s the grafted area.  The first question is always: “What was the graft material?” I’m a recipient of his graft as well as his friendship and mentorship. It’s simply the best and only way to go!

Can we guarantee 100%? No, it’s never possible in medicine. But we can guarantee the science.

To recap traditionally, bone grafts come from 6 sources:

  • Pig

  • Cow

  • Human Cadaver

  • Your Own Bone

  • Plastic Particles (artificial)

  • Ceramic Particles (artificial)

  • And, your body doesn’t like any of it.