Tooth implant update #4: abutment installed
Today's procedure was a very short one, just ten or fifteen minutes of actual work. When I had the metal screw inserted into my jaw, the oral surgeon stitched up the gum tissue over the top of it again, so that I just had a toothless space in my gums there. Now that that's all healed up and the bone has presumably fused with the screw to some degree, the next step was to open up a small hole in the covering tissue, expose the smaller threaded socket inside that screw, and put in a "healing abutment", a smaller-diameter screw with a wide, flat conical head that sticks out on the surface.
Since the local anesthetic wore off, I've been a little sore, but it's nowhere near as bad as the previous installments that involved stitches; an Advil more or less takes care of it.
The purpose of this is, I think, to let the gum tissue re-heal into more or less the configuration it will need when the crown goes on in place of the abutment, which is something my dentist will do in a few weeks.
I'm not sure whether that will be a single- or multiple-stage process of its own. But then I've got a final appointment with the oral surgeon in May to check if everything came out OK. At any rate, my new tooth isn't that far off any more. But now I look like I've got a flathead machine screw where a tooth is supposed to be.
Since the local anesthetic wore off, I've been a little sore, but it's nowhere near as bad as the previous installments that involved stitches; an Advil more or less takes care of it.
The purpose of this is, I think, to let the gum tissue re-heal into more or less the configuration it will need when the crown goes on in place of the abutment, which is something my dentist will do in a few weeks.
I'm not sure whether that will be a single- or multiple-stage process of its own. But then I've got a final appointment with the oral surgeon in May to check if everything came out OK. At any rate, my new tooth isn't that far off any more. But now I look like I've got a flathead machine screw where a tooth is supposed to be.