A sinus lift is a procedure where we "push" the maxillary sinus up in order to add supporting bone, so that we can place a dental implant.
If you've ever had a bad cold or sinus infection, you might have felt pain in the sides of your face - above the back teeth of your upper jaw. This pain is coming from the sinus, and more specifically, the maxillary sinus. If you were to look at the anatomy of your face and jaw, you would see that the sinus is located practically on top of the roots of your back teeth. The location of the sinus matters because as you lose teeth, you also lose bone.
We've established that one of the critical requirements for being able to have dental implants placed is having enough bone to hold the implant(s) in place. If you are missing back teeth in your upper jaw, and you want to replace these teeth with dental implants, you need to have enough bone between the gumline and the bottom of the sinus (the floor of the sinus). Accordingly, if you don't have enough bone to place an implant, we need to find a way to "make room." The way to do this is to move the flexible bottom of the sinus "up" so that we can place bone. This is called a "sinus lift."
If you want to replace missing posterior teeth with dental implants, you might need a sinus lift for us to make room for the implant. Call or contact us today to make an appointment so we can see if dental implants are right for you, and to see if a sinus lift would be needed.
