Do You Need Your Wisdom Teeth Taken Out?
Given all the other nonsense floating around social media, I shouldn't be surprised at seeing this old item resurrected and circulating about yet another way that dentists allegedly rip off the public: wisdom teeth extractions. So let's talk about the following questions, then cover the answers. Unlike most of my articles, this is going to be a lot of LISTS! I've also included a sampling of x-rays taken in my office within just the last few weeks as examples of many of these situations. At the end of the article, I'll also provide a short debunking of the nonsense in this article that occasionally floats around FB and Twitter: Wisdom Teeth Dental Scam & Why You Need Your Wisdom Teeth (hint: you really don't). Why Should Wisdom Teeth be Removed? Even before getting to the reasons why wisdom teeth need to be removed sometimes, let's talk about how dentists and oral surgeons generally diagnose and describe wisdom teeth, aka 3rd molars. The most common x-ray used to see wisdom teeth and figure out if they need to be extracted or not is called a panoramic x-ray. It looks like this: The most obvious reason that wisdom teeth should be removed is if they have a big cavity and would be difficult to fix because of how far back in the mouth they are. If you can't keep them clean, you'll just get cavities again. Save yourself the hassle now and get rid of them. If they can only erupt partially and are still partially covered by gum tissue, that's a great place for bacteria to grow since it's very difficult to clean them. If the bacteria grow out of control, the infection is called pericoronitis (infection of the gum [...]
