All paid DoctorBase customers will be migrated to Kareo Marketing on December 15, 2016. Read how to get your practice ready for the transition.
×

4 Reasons Why Ask DoctorBase is the Most Efficient Way to SEO and Establish Your Brand Online

  1. Ask DoctorBase is a free service for patients on the DoctorBase platform - currently servicing over 6 million American patients of record.
  2. All answers submitted by healthcare professionals (you) are for entertainment purposes only and do not constitute doctor-patient relationships. All patients must agree to this before using Ask DoctorBase.
  3. Our software and our Marketing Engineering staff review each answer and optimize your answers for keywords valuable to your specialty. It is a well kept secret that doctors (you) - not SEO consultants - are the ones who have the most valuable content prized by search engines. Ask DoctorBase "unlocks and optimizes" your content in the most efficient manner possible with today's technology.
  4. Finally, the doctor who provides the most popular answer - "the Featured Answer," gets an added benefit by allowing patients to write rave reviews about your expertise - reviews that are submitted to both Google and Google Local through our Preferred Data Provider relationship.

Ask Dr. Molly if you have questions or want a personal session on how to best use Ask DoctorBase for maximum marketing impact.

...

Molly Maloof, MD

Director of Clinical Content
@DoctorBase

Wisdom teeth question.

Do I need to take out impacted wisdom teeth?
Poster

Find low drug prices at local & online pharmacies

Featured Answer

7 UpVoted this answer
Most of the time, the answer is a resounding YES! Most wisdom teeth cause nothing but problems down the road since very few people actually have sufficient room for them to come in and function correctly. Even when they do have the minimal "space" requirements, they are so difficult to get to that adequate flossing and brushing Do Not occur. Out of sight/out of mind is not good here since if a person cannot adequately clean and maintain the wisdom teeth, they put their immediate neighbors, the teeth in front of them in jeopardy leading to eventual loss of more than just the wisdom teeth.

Impacted wisdom teeth are even worse since they are effectively "stuck" and will Never come in correctly. This is a problem for orthodontic patients that do not have them removed since the other teeth will eventually crowd together attempting to allow sufficient space for the wisdom teeth to emerge which they will not do. If they are partially exposed, the seal around them is not complete which leads to bacteria entering around the sack where the wisdom tooth developed leading to a painful infection known as pericoronitis. Even completely impacted wisdom teeth are not immune from this situation as the most posterior part of the teeth immediately in front of the wisdom teeth lack a fully developed seal as well where bacteria can enter and cause pericoronitis.

I personally have a patient who was seen in the ER and later the OR to have an impacted and infected lower right wisdom tooth removed at 7 pm in the OR. The infection was bad enough to cause local lymph nodes to swell and begin choking off the airway according to the Oral Surgeon who saw her that evening. While this is exceedingly rare, it can happen to anyone. Always consult your dentist before makng any decisions about your wisdom teeth.
Norman D. Knowles
3 UpVoted this answer
Some people would advocate early removal of wisdom teeth especially since the jaw bone tends to be softer in someone's 20s 30s. As we age there is also a tendency for slower healing in general in addition to complications from other medical factors present. I would advise seeing xrays at your dentist as a good starting point.
1 UpVoted this answer
In most cases impacted wisdom teeth need to come out. It is hard to say without x rays
Mike Huggins
1 UpVoted this answer
You should have them removed if they are symptomatic or if your dentist recommends it.
Andrew Kelly
1 UpVoted this answer
Your first step to determine the need for treatment of impacted wisdom teeth is a complete diagnostic evaluation and consultation by an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon. At this consultation visit your health history, medications, drug allergies and history will be reviewed. A panoramic radiograph will be obtained to evaluate the position of the impacted teeth, their degree of development along with their proximity to the sinus cavity in the upper jaw and nerve canal in the lower jaw.

Following this an accurate diagnosis can be made and a treatment plan formulated. At that time your surgeon can review any potential risks, choice of anesthesia, as well as recovery time.

If treatment is recommended it is always preferable to treat impacted wisdom teeth earlier and before painful symptoms begin.
1 UpVoted this answer
Without X-rays and physically looking at you no Dentist can give you the correct answer.

http://thepasadenatexasdentist.com/third-molar-crowding-video/
1 UpVoted this answer
Having the third molars—“wisdom teeth”—removed is so common and necessary that it has almost become one of the rites of passage along the road to adulthood. For many patients, the decision to visit an oral surgeon to have the wisdom teeth removed is prompted when those teeth cause pain or become infected.

The main issue with the wisdom teeth is that most people don’t have enough room in their dental arch or jaws for those teeth to erupt properly. As a result, they often become impacted, or stuck in the bone or gum tissue.

The wisdom teeth can cause a host of problems if they are not removed in a timely fashion. Impacted wisdom teeth can develop cysts or even tumors. If the wisdom teeth eventually erupt partially, they’ll serve as a haven for bacteria because it’s nearly impossible to reach the pocketing around third molars to keep them sufficiently clean through brushing and flossing. As those bacteria collect, they’ll begin to attack the gums, leading to periodontal disease. That periodontal disease may progress to the point where the underlying jawbone also begins to deteriorate from the inflammation. That bacteria will also increase the likelihood of decay on the neighboring good molars and can lead to those teeth needing to be extracted as well.

Aesthetic flaws can arise from the wisdom teeth, as well. If the wisdom teeth continue to push their way through the jawbone, they may crowd the other teeth and throw the smile out of alignment.

However, not all patients experience overt problems with the wisdom teeth. People who have qualms about oral surgery may question the need to extract teeth when they aren’t causing any symptoms. But hypertension (high blood pressure) doesn’t usually cause symptoms either, until end organ damage occurs. Should high blood pressure not be treated either until it is symptomatic? So that line of thinking isn’t the best line of thinking. A dentist not diagnosing, discussing and referring a patient to an oral surgeon in Chicago for treatment of impacted, partially impacted, or mal-erupted wisdom teeth is doing their patients a real disservice. Imagine not having gum disease diagnosed or treated, or a cavity not diagnosed or treated because “they don’t hurt right now”.

For most patients, wisdom tooth extraction is recommended and necessary. It’s impossible to predict when problems will occur, and it’s best to have the third molars removed before they can do any damage. Furthermore, the procedure is routine and remarkably safe, if skilled oral and maxillofacial surgeons perform the surgery.

It is the exception, when the wisdom teeth are expected to emerge fully and in the proper alignment, and it is only in these instances where patients may not need to have them removed.

Oral surgeons use sophisticated, state-of-the-art, 3D digital CT radiographs to help determine if you have enough room in your jaw for the wisdom teeth to erupt. Having this knowledge can help you make a better-informed decision.

Ideally, patients should have their wisdom teeth removed before age 23. But this can vary from person to person based on wisdom tooth maturity. After that point, the roots of the wisdom teeth are more solidified and longer, which makes the extraction procedure more difficult. Older patients also take longer to heal from the surgery.

Nonetheless, patients who put off the procedure can still have the third molars safely extracted at a later age.
Steven A. Koos
1 UpVoted this answer
Most dentist who extract wisdom teeth would encourage you to have them removed even if they are asymptomatic, while you are young. These are teeth that have zero potential to ever be useful, and they definitely have a much higher potential of becoming problematic. The bone these teeth are impacted in is much softer in a younger person than, for example, a 60 year old, and therefore, the removal of, and the healing from the removal of wisdom teeth is much less complicated the younger you are. We like to have a few complaints after wisdom tooth removal as possible. That being said, some wisdom teeth are so impacted that the removal can be very complex. Occasionally, I advise patients to leave very badly impacted wisdom teeth alone. I have seen many elderly patients with impacted wisdom teeth that have never been problematic. I also have seen many elderly patients where wisdom teeth that have been "quiet" for 50 or so years suddenly become acutely painful and infected. Nothing like doing complex surgery on an older patient in less-than perfect health who takes multiple medications.

So to summarize, it is your decision to make. But I would definitely advise you to have them removed.
Jack Binder
1 UpVoted this answer
I could better answer this question if I had your x-rays to look at. It's hard to give an answer without seeing the position of the wisdom teeth and location of adjacent anatomical structures.
The reason for removing impacted teeth is really protecting the second molar (12 yr molar), its impacted because there is not enough space for them to come into occlusion (proper contact against the opposing third molar). Very important to remember that the jaws and teeth are our grinding and speaking machine and that the closer we are to the hinge (TMJ) the greater the pressure that can be exerted. If we don't have thirds that are in proper occlusion (can be brushed and flossed front and back) they are not functional (have no job), and endanger the second molar which will then be the second closest to the joint (in most people the tooth that can exert the most pressure). Crunchy, chewy stuff goes back there right? When we loose our back teeth then we loose our front teeth, this can take years but why start the domino effect? If you notice you got 32 teeth and the bill was 0$, if you are going to have a dentist take put a titanium bolt in your jaw, a transmucosal abutment and a crown, you are looking at somewhere around 3-4 thousand dollars for one tooth.