First in the Biological Surgery Series at Holliday Dental Wellness
I want to share something that took me years of practice — and eventually, my own procedure — to fully understand.
Some of the most important things happening in your mouth cannot be seen. Not with the naked eye. Not with a standard X-ray. And not in a routine dental exam.
That is not meant to scare you. It is meant to open a door.
Today I want to explain something called a cavitation — and why it matters more than most people realize.
First, Let's Clear Up the Name
A cavitation sounds like it might be related to a cavity. It is not.
A cavity is decay on the surface of a tooth. A cavitation is something completely different. It is a small area inside your jawbone where the bone tissue has died. Think of it like a hollow pocket — or a wound that never fully healed on the inside, even though everything looked fine on the outside.
You might also hear it called an open bone biopsy. That is the name of the procedure we use to treat it. Both terms refer to the same thing, and I will use them interchangeably throughout this series so you feel comfortable with both.
How Does It Happen?
Most cavitations form where a tooth has been removed — especially wisdom teeth. After an extraction, your body is supposed to fill that space in with healthy new bone. But sometimes, for a variety of reasons, that does not happen the way it should.
Instead of healing completely, the area closes over on the surface while the tissue underneath stays unhealthy. Blood flow to that part of the bone gets cut off. Without blood flow, the tissue cannot get the oxygen and nutrients it needs. Over time, it breaks down.
And then things move in.
Bacteria, fungi, and other organisms love low-oxygen environments. A cavitation gives them exactly that — a quiet, hidden place to settle in where your immune system cannot easily reach them.
Your body knows something is wrong. It keeps trying to fight it. But without the ability to actually get to the source, it cannot win. It just keeps working in the background — and that slow, ongoing effort takes a toll on your whole system.
The Tricky Part: It Often Has No Symptoms
This is what makes cavitations so easy to miss.
Most people with cavitations do not have obvious jaw pain. There is no visible swelling. Nothing that lights up on a regular dental X-ray. You can walk around for years — sometimes decades — with one of these sites in your jaw and have no idea it is there.
What you might notice instead are things that seem completely unrelated. Fatigue that does not make sense. Brain fog. Skin issues. Inflammation that keeps showing up no matter what you do. A feeling that your body is working harder than it should just to get through the day.
I know that feeling personally. And I know what it is like to look for answers and not find them — until you start looking in the right place.
Why Standard X-Rays Miss It
A regular dental X-ray gives us a flat, two-dimensional picture. It is a great tool, but it has limits. It cannot always show us what is happening inside the density of the bone.
At Holliday Dental Wellness, we use 3D Cone Beam CT imaging, or CBCT. This gives us a full three-dimensional map of your jawbone — its density, its structure, and what is happening beneath the surface. It is how we find what a flat image cannot show us.
The right technology changes everything.
This Is a Whole-Body Issue
Here is what I want you to take away from this first post.
A cavitation is not just a dental problem. Your jaw does not exist in isolation from the rest of you. When your immune system is quietly battling a hidden infection — even one with no obvious symptoms — your whole body feels it.
I had this procedure done on myself. Two sites. And when we tested the tissue that came out, what we found was eye-opening. I will share all of that in Part 3.
For now, I just want you to know this: if you have been dealing with symptoms that do not have a clear answer, it is worth asking whether something might be happening beneath the surface. Your body is always trying to tell you something. Our job is to listen.
Coming next — Part 2: Why Do We Do Cavitation Surgery? The case for treating something you cannot feel.
This blog is for educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice. If you have questions about whether a cavitation evaluation is right for you, we would love to talk.