Complications are rare and therefore should not be expected, but it is important to recognise that they are possible. As is the case with any intervention, the risks and benefits must be carefully considered prior to proceeding with surgery. Unless specifically advised to the contrary, you should expect your procedure to be completed uneventfully with minimal complications.
Procedures involving lower teeth may rarely cause trauma to a nerve that runs through the lower jaw and supplies the lip, chin, gums and tongue with feeling. This may result in an altered sensation of any of these areas, which could be anything ranging from numbness, tingling, pins and needles, or even pain. In most cases, the feeling returns to normal eventually, but very rarely, the effect may be permanent. The surgeon will discuss this in more detail with you, including the relative chances of it affecting you in particular. In the greatest majority of people, it is reasonable to expect that nothing untoward will happen at all.
Procedures involving upper back teeth may affect your sinuses, which lie just above the teeth. Sometimes, a small opening occurs between the mouth and the sinus, which tends to heal spontaneously depending on its size. If it doesn’t, it can be managed with another small surgical procedure involving stretching the gum across the opening. Teeth fragments could potentially slip through the opening into the sinus. If this very rare event occurs, then it would necessitate an onward referral to our ENT colleagues for retrieval.
Operating on a tooth requires leaning on the adjacent tooth. If this is heavily restored or has a crown, or is decayed and fragile, then there is a susceptibility for the tooth to fracture or the restoration to be dislodged, requiring you to return to your dentist for further management.
Working on your back teeth involves stretching your lips so it is not uncommon for them to be a little sore or chapped after the procedure. A little Vaseline will help.
As is the case with any surgical procedure, anywhere in the body, infections are possible. If this occurs, we will make sure it is treated. Smokers and patients on particular medications may have delayed healing and susceptibility to infections. The surgeon will discuss the relevance of this to you.
The tooth socket in the jaw bone corresponds exactly to the shape of the tooth. Over the few weeks after the tooth is removed, the bone will remould to change its shape. Rarely, this remodelling results in small edges of bony spicules to appear in the socket that are often confused by patients to be tooth fragments. They are not and usually fall off, but if they become a particular irritant, the surgeon could flick them off for you.