Warren Dentist Discusses Wisdom Teeth
Hi, I’m Dr. Greg Apsey here in Warren, Michigan. I’d like to talk to you today about wisdom teeth. Why we have them? Why we take them out and when it’s best too. A lot of people wonder, well, why do I even have them if they don’t fit in my mouth and generally that’s the problem is that we have too many teeth in our mouth and in ancient times our jaws were larger and the teeth all seemed to fit in. So, when we look at, you know, skulls of ancient people, the teeth are generally all fitting into the, into the structure of the jaw. But our jaws have, gotten smaller over time, the teeth are remaining the same size. So basically, what happens is, as the teeth erupt into the mouth those wisdom teeth just don’t have room to fit in.
The question is then. Well, so what do we do, and what are the problems that arise? Well, wisdom teeth often are impacted. You’ve probably heard of impacted wisdom teeth. And what this means is that the wisdom tooth is set in such a way that it cannot come up properly into the mouth. It’s generally coming in at an angle towards the tooth in front of it and it’s just unable to, to right itself and it then grows in that position. So if that happens, a result of that can be damage to the root of the tooth in front of it, the tooth that you are chewing on and need to keep healthy for your lifetime, hopefully. So it can damage that tooth. Sometimes wisdom teeth come in just part way. So a small part of the tooth will be up above the gums and visible. The issue there is that the bacteria from the mouth and food debris and so forth can get down and around the wisdom tooth and then create infected tissue around that wisdom tooth. It’s impossible for the patient to take care of that tooth. But it’s exposed and in the mouth. And it’s susceptible to all the bacteria that are in the mouth that would cause problems with all your other teeth. But you’re able to floss and brush all the other teeth. But the wisdom tooth is just poking through. You can’t access, you can’t clean it. And so problems can arise underneath the gums in a place where there’s not much you can really do about it. So in those cases, we, we normally recommend removing the wisdom teeth.
Now when, timing is really critical with wisdom teeth. It’s usually at age 16. With most of our young patients, we are recommending that they have a panorex x-ray taken. A panorex is a large film that shows the whole mouth, the whole jaw structure and it shows the location and shape of the wisdom tooth, so that we can plan for the removal of those teeth. Ideally, wisdom teeth are removed while the root is still forming. What we find is that the wisdom tooth, is that the surgery is much less complicated, and it’s much better on the patient, much easier on the patient if their wisdom teeth are, if they need to come out, if they’re removed around age 16 or 17. So it’s best to go through and have that examination done, discuss whether you have them or not. Not everybody gets wisdom teeth but if they are there, what’s the likelihood that they are going to be coming in properly. If they are not going to come in properly, then it’s time to start talking about removing them. I would like to show you an x-ray that I have over here which just gives you an example of impacted wisdom teeth.
Okay so here we see a patient. We’ve, we’ve drawn some notes on the x-ray just to show which wisdom teeth we wanted to take out. But we can see here I’ll use a pen as a pointer. This wisdom tooth here is impacted meaning it is not able to erupt fully. It’s banged into the back of this tooth. And it’s very much in the jawbone back here. And it’s just unable to upright itself. And so this wisdom tooth could potentially damage this tooth. It’s also slightly into the mouth, so it can cause bacteria form the mouth can get in and around it and there’s no way to take care of that tooth has to be removed.
The upper wisdom teeth, you can see, are really angled back towards the back of the mouth. If this wisdom tooth were able to come into the mouth all the way. The only thing that that tooth would be biting on would be the patient’s jawbone in the back. So there, it would get in the way of functioning, of chewing. Same way on the other side. It’s just coming in, just absolutely the wrong direction. And this tooth on this side is partially erupted but it can’t come in all the way because you can see the jawbone right here, is over the top of the tooth. So, but you can see this big, dark space behind it. That’s full of bacteria, and it’s a terrible infection waiting to happen. These wisdom teeth have to come out. This patient, however, is an adult, and the roots are fully formed. So this is not the ideal time to take them out, but they have to come out anyways, because of the issues that are going to arise with the infection of the gums, and so this patient, actually, was referred to the oral surgeon. The reason being that the root of the wisdom tooth is right into the nerve canal. These lines here outline the nerve canal that goes through jaw. And there is some potential that while this tooth is being removed there’s a potential to damage this nerve that’s going through the jaw, now that is a problem because, if the nerve is severely damaged, the patient can end up having a numb lip in the front, possibly permanently. So, again, another good reason to remove wisdom teeth early, before the roots are fully formed. We just want to try to be careful with all those structures. So, that’s my story.
Warren Dentist Discusses Wisdom Teeth
That’s my discussion about wisdom teeth. Come on over and see us here in Warren, Michigan. We’re at 11270 13 Mile Road. Phone number is 586-573-7700. Have a great day.