Why the upper back jaw is different
Above your upper back teeth sits the maxillary sinus, an air-filled space. When those teeth are lost, two things happen at once: the bone beneath the sinus shrinks like it does anywhere else, and the sinus itself tends to expand downwards into the space.
The result is a thin shelf of bone where an implant needs solid depth. A sinus lift restores that depth.
How the procedure runs
- A 3D scan measures exactly how much bone height remains, which decides whether a small lift or a larger one is needed.
- The lift. Under local anaesthetic, the sinus membrane is carefully raised and graft material placed in the space created beneath it.
- Healing, four to nine months while the graft becomes bone.
- The implant, placed into the new bone height.
Who it suits, and who it does not
Anyone who needs an upper back implant and has too little bone height for one, which is a large proportion of people who lost those teeth years ago.
It is not appropriate during an active sinus infection, and chronic sinus disease needs assessing first, sometimes with an ear, nose and throat specialist. Smoking raises the failure rate here as it does with any bone graft.
Afterwards
Swelling and some congestion on that side for several days. The instructions about not blowing your nose are not a formality: pressure through the sinus in the first two weeks is the main way a lift gets disturbed.