There may be instances in which a lot of bone may have been lost in the extraction of the tooth. This may call for bone grafting, which is the procedure of adding bone-like biomaterial to the jaw where the natural bone has been lost. This bone grafting material triggers your own cells to start rebuilding bone mass. Over time, the entire grafted area starts functioning like your natural bone.
Even if not much bone is lost during extraction, over a period of a few months, bone loss generally occurs because the bone starts to reabsorb in the jaw.
If the patient is a candidate for an implant, we almost always do a bone-graft on the same day as tooth extraction. It takes a few months for the surgical site to heal and then it is ready to take on an implant.