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Wisdom Teeth
By Fashun Smith
At around the age of 17,
wisdom teeth either erupt—or try to, or fail entirely to
erupt—in the back of your mouth. Because of the lack of room in
the jaw for the large, sharp wisdom teeth, the dental community
often encourages them to be removed. But why should you? Do your
teeth need all that space? Or is there more to it than that?
When
wisdom teeth
come into your mouth fully, and not crooked, they’re usually
harmless, and serve their purpose of being grinders. But it’s
often the case that a tooth will only erupt halfway, leaving the
pierced gum area around it susceptible to food and bacteria
which can leak down inside and cause infection—not to mention
bad breath. These infections aren’t small matters, although they
do begin that way. If left untreated, they can cause trismus,
the inability to fully open the mouth, and keep spreading until
they reach as far as the neck.
Even if a tooth does come
out correctly, it’s far enough back in the mouth for it to be
difficult to reach to clean with a toothbrush and impossible to
floss without unhinging your jaw.
However, most wisdom
tooth-related problems are caused by the tooth failing to emerge
fully from the gum—these teeth, called ‘impacted teeth’, can
tilt outwards abnormally, crowding the teeth around them and
causing pain and irritation of the gums. Such crowding can
create a slow-working domino effect, causing other teeth to
become crooked. After that, they can only be returned to their
original positions with braces.
Cysts can form around the
impacted tooth, affecting the bones and expanding the jaw. If
they grow large enough, they can fracture the jaw. Sometimes,
although not often, cysts can harbor cancerous tumors.
There are many kinds of
impaction—mesial, when the tooth is angled toward the front of
the mouth; vertical, towards the bottom; horizontal, when a
tooth is on its side; and distal, when it angles toward the back
of the mouth. There’s more: bony impaction is when the tooth
hasn’t even made it to the gum, but is still stuck behind in the
jawbone. Soft tissue impaction describes when the tooth does
make it through the bone, but fails to make the final jump
through the gum tissue.
But why go through with
having these teeth, which are signals that one has come-of-age
in some cultures, removed now? Surgery certainly isn’t something
to which many of us look forward. Unless it’s pressing—like,
say, a brain transplant—we tend to put it off. But it’s best to
remove the cause before it becomes a problem, which is why,
although the thought of removing these third molars isn’t
enticing, you should have them out before they can cause
discomfort and infection in your mouth. Even if you do manage to
avoid these effects for awhile, the bone surrounding the tooth
becomes denser as you age, and once you pass forty the tooth
becomes more difficult to remove. So what are you waiting for? A
few days of pain can save you years of headache.
Fashun
Smith is a freelance writer and consumer advocate for
http://www.CheckMyDentist.com,
helping visitors locate a
Dentist Atlanta
and all over the United States.
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