Wisdom teeth — or third molars — are the last teeth to erupt at the back of your mouth. These teeth are common among persons aged 17-25. During this age, most teeth have erupted, so when wisdom teeth make a late entry, there is usually insufficient space to accommodate them. Due to space limitation, wisdom teeth may become trapped (impacted) in the gum line or grow at an angle, affecting the nearby teeth.
If you have troublesome wisdom teeth in McDonough, Georgia, you have come to the right place. Dr. Yvonne Caton-Hospedales and her team at Your Smile Dental Wellness Center offer gentle yet effective wisdom teeth extractions to resolve pain and restore oral health.
Our ancestors’ primitive diet involved hard nuts, raw plants, and tough meats — wisdom teeth were required to grind these foods for proper digestion.
As the diet changed, our bodies went through minor evolutionary changes. For instance, the jaws became smaller, so most people don’t have enough room for wisdom teeth. Unfortunately, your wisdom teeth remain impacted within the jaw due to a lack of space. Wisdom teeth that are fully or partially impacted are difficult to clean, putting you at risk of infections.
Untreated wisdom teeth can cause numerous dental challenges, including:
When we suspect wisdom teeth, we recommend dental X-rays to establish the location and complexity of the wisdom teeth. If your wisdom teeth are already causing problems or are likely to affect your dental health, we recommend extraction. Fortunately, unlike other functional teeth, your wisdom teeth don’t require replacement after extraction.
The procedure for extracting your wisdom tooth depends on whether it’s impacted or not. If your wisdom tooth has broken through the gum line but causes overcrowding or is severely decayed or damaged, we’ll recommend removal through a simple extraction. Before this procedure, we numb your tooth and use special tools and techniques to pull out the tooth from its socket.
However, surgical extraction is the best course of treatment for tooth impaction. The treatment begins by anesthetizing your gums to minimize discomfort. Since your tooth is trapped under the gums and embedded in the jawbone, it’s necessary to incise your gums and remove a small portion of the bone to extract the tooth.
To minimize the amount of bone removed, the dentist breaks the trapped tooth into fragments so that each piece is removed through a small opening in the bone. After removing all the fragments, we clean and suture the surgical site to begin the healing process.
Most patients take a few weeks to recover after wisdom tooth extraction. We’ll give you a list of postoperative instructions to ensure you experience an uneventful recovery.
When wisdom teeth erupt in alignment with other teeth, you can live with them, but this is rarely the case.
If you have impacted or troublesome wisdom teeth in McDonough, GA, please contact (770) 727-3378 to schedule an appointment with Dr. Yvonne Caton-Hospedales.
We offer effective wisdom teeth treatment to help you lead a painless, healthy life.
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