I understand how the wound would heal but how does the body know to fill in the entire hole left by the tooth removal? That space didn’t have any gums before, since a tooth was there but it all gets filled.
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Dentist here – inflammation and normal trauma processes carry out cell growth, tissue differentiation, repair, etc. like they would for any wound. The body doesn’t like voids and will fill them. They first heal to close the wound, then slowly over time remodel into a smoother shape (bone and soft tissue).
>At just 24 hours after your extraction, the focus of the activity inside your socket revolves around the blood clot that’s formed.
The clot itself is composed of platelets (sticky cell fragments that initiated the clot’s formation) and red and white blood cells, all embedded together in a fibrin gel. (It’s the fibrin gel that gives the clot its semi-solid consistency.)
Starting at this point and continuing on during the days that follow, platelets in the clot and other types of cells attracted to it begin to produce chemical factors and mediators that initiate and promote the healing process.
Here’s a good explanation I found. Wounds in your mouth heal *very* quickly compared to the rest of your body. The hole is filled in with platelets in your blood, blood cells, fibrin (which is what makes normal scabs) gel, and these other cells are attracted to the wound. Much like white blood cells are attracted to foreign bodies in a cut or something. The chemical process initiated by all this tells your body to build new gum cells in this area.
The dentist or oral surgeon will stuff the hole with gauze to keep stuff out.
Losing teeth is a somewhat natural occurence and the body has evolved to grow the gums over to seal the hole.
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