What is a sinus closure after tooth extraction?

Answer 1

After having my tooth extracted it left a small opening between the socket and the sinus cavity. This, I was told, is normal for some extractions. The problem is that the opening or "communication" never healed and closed. To fix this problem my oral surgeon performed a sinus closure. Durring this operation he numbed me up all around that extraction site as you would expect, he cleaned out the extraction canal of al lteh swollen and/or infected tissue that had developed there. He then cut a small patch of tissue from what he called the "flap". This is the area around where the gums and cheek come together. He then put that patch of tisse over the extraction site to cover the hole leading to my sinus cavity. The patch and the flap area he cut from were then sutured closed. My mouth was stuffed with gauze which i was told to remove after 1 hour. I was given a 20# of vicodin and sent on my way. I go back in 10 days to get the surtures removed (it is currently day 3). As of today i have no pain. In the beginning it was a bit swollen and uncomfortable but that has subsided nearly 100%. I would have to say the extraction had a worse healing time then having the sinus closure. One thing to note is that i was told that sinus closure surgery has a higher falure rate than other proceedures. If it fails the surgeon said he would continue doing it until it succeeds. The only bad thing about retrying is that he said on the 2nd attemp (if necessary) he would take tissue from my palette instead of my flap and that sound painfull lol.

Hope this helps.