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Wisdom Teeth: Nature, Complications, Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Removal

Wisdom teeth might cause lot of pain and troubles, while erupting. But they can lead even to much more serious troubles, if misaligned. However, we know few about them, before we face the wisdom teeth dental problems. That is why, while experiencing the "third molars" eruption, the patients generally feel scared and deeply frustrated. Let's learn more about the wisdom teeth to feel armed at all points, when your time to get them comes!

What are Wisdom Teeth?

Wisdom teeth are known as the third molars. They are called so, because they are the last teeth to emerge in the mouth, thus, being associated with the age of wisdom. The majority of people get them in the age of 16-24 years. However, near 25-35% of the world population will never develop the wisdom teeth. As a rule, individuals have four of them erupted through their gums, one in each corner of their mouth.

If the wisdom teeth grow properly alongside the other teeth, they can become a precious asset to your mouth. Unfortunately, generally this is not the case. More often, the third molars have to be removed due to their development complications.

What are the Wisdom Teeth Complications?

Unfortunately, in the majority of the wisdom teeth eruption cases, the newly grown teeth turn to be impacted. If your dentist says that your tooth is impacted, this means that your tooth has failed to fully emerge through your gums. An impacted tooth remains in the soft gingiva tissue or bone, supporting it, beyond the conventional eruption time. The cause of the impacted teeth might be overcrowding, often associated with the small size of the jaw, which is insufficient for the third set of molars to fit in. This complication is generally painless and causes hardly any discomfort. However, the partially erupted teeth are much more prone to tooth decay and other inflectional dental diseases, as they form the perfect opening for bacteria to enter. This results in the acute toothache, gums swelling, jaw stiffness, and general weakness.

The other complications include a misaligned wisdom teeth problem. They might be angled inwards or outwards, take horizontal position, or be misaligned towards or away teeth, located next to them. This position makes it rather difficult to brush and floss the newly grown teeth, which makes them prone to tooth decay and gum diseases.

What are the Wisdom Teeth Complications Symptoms?

The wisdom teeth, no matter whether they are impacted or misaligned, often cause no apparent symptoms before they start irritating your cheek and mouth, or infection enters them. In such the cases the symptoms include the toothache, jaw stiffness, and gums swelling near the impacted tooth. Apart from that, a misaligned wisdom tooth causes pain, associated with your cheek, tongue, or floor / top of your mouth irritation due to the newly grown teeth rubbing against them.

Often, an impacted tooth causes the gum, surrounding it, to swell. Finally, the gum tissue, which cowers it, opens, making it easy for germs to enter the wound, causing infection.

All the above-mentioned symptoms are the medical indications for an affected wisdom tooth extraction. The tooth also has to be removed, if there is not enough room to take the proper dental care of it or the teeth surrounding it due to the wisdom tooth misalignment, or crowded teeth problem.

How is the Wisdom Teeth Complications Diagnosis Carried out?

As soon as you have noticed your wisdom teeth starting to erupt, visit your dentist. He will periodically take an X-ray to evaluate your wisdom teeth positioning. If he notices any signs of their misalignment or an impacted tooth syndrome, he would sign you up for the dental surgery aimed at the affected tooth extraction.

Your dentist may also recommend you to remove your wisdom teeth even before the actual symptoms development. This is done to avoid a much more painful and complicated extraction that in the future. Young people recover much faster and easier after such a dental surgery, than older patients do, as their wisdom teeth roots are not fully formed yet.

How Are Wisdom Teeth Removed?

The relative ease, associated with the affected wisdom teeth removal, depends on their eruption extent and position. The wisdom tooth that is fully erupted can be easily removed as any other permanent tooth. The impacted or misaligned tooth extraction requires the dental surgery, which is generally performed under a local anesthesia. It used to numb the surrounding tissue. After that, an oral surgeon makes a small incision on your gum to pull out the impacted tooth and the part of its supporting bone. Finally, he puts on the stitches. The patient gets some sedative medicine after and sometimes during the surgery. The speed of recovery and healing process is determined by the degree of the operation complications.