Featuring Dr. Dino Georgas, BSc, DMD, MSD, Cert. Perio, FCDS(BC)

Duration: 1 minute, 9 seconds

Collapsed ridge would be a situation where you've lost a tooth, and a bridge has been placed at the site to replace the missing tooth.

Underneath the fake tooth, or the replacement tooth, you can see the tissue will have pulled away, so there's a little bit of a shadowing and a space. Concern obviously is esthetically it doesn't look very good, and from a hygiene point of view you're going to trap food and plaque, very difficult to keep clean.

How do we treat this? Obviously proper planning would be helpful, before the tooth is extracted you can obviously have a bone or a gum graft, to not let the tissue collapse.

But if it has collapsed, how do we restore it? With a simple gum graft, we'll go to your palate, we'll take a little bit of gum where there's plenty and move it to a site where it's lacking, which is the collapsed site.

After the gum tissue has healed there will be some bulk or thickness there, it will look like the root is still present. When your dentist places a new bridge it will look like the tooth was never missing from the first place.

Esthetically it's going to look great, from a hygiene point of view, you'll be able to keep it cleaner. Food will have a less tendency to get caught there. Overall your dental smile is enhanced. Home care is going to be easy for you to manage.

Presenter: Dr. Dino Georgas, Periodontist, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Periodontist