Risks Of Keeping Your Wisdom Teeth
Virginia Beach, VA
Your wisdom teeth are the final set of permanent teeth to erupt into your mouth, typically between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five. People usually have four wisdom teeth at the back of their mouth. Wisdom teeth become impacted if they don’t have enough space to develop or erupt normally. If this happens, they can cause pain, damage nearby teeth, result in other dental issues. Hence the need for wisdom teeth extraction.
Sometimes wisdom teeth don’t cause any immediate problems if they become impacted. However, their location at the back of the mouth makes them more difficult to clean and thus more susceptible to gum disease and tooth decay. For these reasons, we also remove wisdom teeth to prevent them from causing future problems later on.
Symptoms of Impacted Wisdom Teeth
Wisdom teeth sometimes don’t show symptoms if they become infected. However, if an impacted wisdom tooth develops an infection, harms nearby teeth or causes other dental issues, the following symptoms may show up:
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Swollen, tender, red or bleeding gums
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Pain or swelling in or around the jaw
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Halitosis (bad breath) or a displeasing taste in the mouth
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Pain when opening the mouth |
Contact us if you have such symptoms in the back of your mouth.
Causes of Impacted Wisdom Teeth
In some cases, wisdom teeth can erupt smoothly and align with the other teeth. However, a lot of the time, a patient’s mouth doesn’t have enough room for them to develop properly.
Impacted wisdom teeth are divided into two categories:
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A tooth becomes partially impacted when it emerges partially, and part of the crown is visible
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A tooth is fully impacted if it doesn’t fully break through the gums |
Whether a tooth becomes fully or partially impacted, it can develop at an angle going toward a nearby molar or the back of the mouth. It can also grow at a right angle to your other teeth, horizontal to the jaw bone. Another possibility is the impacted tooth growing straight down or up while trapped within the jaw bone.
Health Problems caused by Impacted Wisdom Teeth
If we leave impacted wisdom teeth in your mouth, they can cause a variety of complications.
Gum Disease
Because wisdom teeth are located at the back of the mouth, seeing and cleaning them can prove difficult. As a result, they are more likely to develop inflammatory gum conditions.
Tooth Decay
Compared to normal teeth, partially impacted wisdom teeth develop tooth decay more often. This is also due in part to the fact that wisdom teeth are more difficult to clean due to their location. It is also because when a tooth becomes partially erupted, it makes it easier for food and bacteria to get stuck between the tooth and the surrounding gum.
Cysts
A wisdom tooth grows within a sac inside the jaw bone. If the sac fills up with fluid, it forms a cyst that can harm nerves, teeth and the jaw bone. In rare cases, a benign tumor can form. We may need to excise bone and tissue to correct such problems.
Damage to Surrounding Teeth
If a wisdom tooth pushes up against the tooth next to it (the second molar), it can harm it or cause an increased risk of infection. This exerted pressure can also cause other teeth in that area to crowd, resulting in the need for orthodontic corrective treatment.
For more information, please contact our office at (757) 777-9883.
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