At the Dallas dental office of Dr. Davina Prida, we never want our patients to lose a healthy, natural tooth. However, there are some cases where removing one or more teeth is the best option to maintain the patient’s overall oral health. When this happens, patients can receive safe, comfortable tooth extractions at Inwood Village Cosmetic & Implant Dentistry. Our skilled dentist and caring dental team are here to help patients through the extraction process, and we offer a range of tooth replacement options to fully restore your smile right away. If you need to learn more about tooth extraction or want to find out about any of our other treatment options, call our Dallas dentist and dental care team today.

We will only recommend extraction when absolutely necessary to avoid serious oral health issues. Some of the common reasons we recommend tooth removal include:

• Severe decay or damage that makes repairing the tooth impossible
• To prepare teeth for orthodontic treatment (braces) when crowding is a concern
• Prior to the design and placement of partials and dentures, one or more teeth may need to be removed
• Teeth that are impacted, unable to erupt
• Baby teeth that do not fall out on their own
• Wisdom teeth, third molars, may need to be removed due to lack of space in the bite or inability of the tooth to erupt

Your tooth extraction procedure will be performed by “pulling” or surgical removal. Pulling is only possible if the tooth has fully erupted from the gums, and typically, the tooth should be pulled as soon as possible after eruption to prevent the roots form fully fusing with supportive structures. To pull the tooth, we simply use a metal clasping tool to hold the top tooth and shift the roots back and forth until it breaks free from the socket. When pulling isn’t possible, we will surgically extract the tooth. This typically just means we’ll need to cut away supportive structures before we’re able to remove the tooth, but in some cases, surgical tooth removal can be much more difficult. We will carefully explain your specific situation before we begin removing the tooth, so you feel comfortable before we move forward with treatment.

Following your tooth removal, you’ll likely experience some bleeding, swelling, and discomfort. For the first 48 hours, you will want to rest and avoid chewing near the extraction site. We encourage patients to eat very soft foods for several days after treatment. Your discomfort and any inflammation should gradually diminish over the course of about week. If you notice an increase in pain or swelling, the extraction site continues to bleed for more than the first few days, or you’re still very uncomfortable after a week, it’s time to call our office. In most cases, we can see patients experiencing an emergency following tooth extraction on the same day they call.