Why Do Wisdom Teeth Require Extraction?

If you have wisdom teeth soon to erupt, their arrival could mean serious trouble for your smile. From misalignment to painful impactions, this could alter your oral health and bite function in negative ways. But we can help! In today’s blog, your Maple Grove, MN, dentist talks about extracting wisdom teeth!

The Risks of Your Wisdom Teeth

As we reach our late teens and early 20s, up to four new teeth could arrive in the rear of your mouth. Also known as third molars, these erupt in a smile that tends to have little to no room for them. As a result, their arrival means shifting teeth to create misalignment. They could also only partially erupt, which creates a painful dental impaction. The risk of associated complications like tooth decay, infection, gum disease, and even TMJ disorder and bruxism (teeth grinding) could increase as well. To avoid these, and prevent patients who have completed orthodontic treatment from seeing their results reverse, we can remove these teeth before they even erupt.

The Tooth Extraction Process

Our team will start by examining the smile in detail with digital x-rays, so we can peer beneath the gums and see the teeth in detail. We can then plan extraction to ensure we take out these teeth without encountering nerve tissues, sinus cavities, or blood vessels. The images will be highly detailed and high-definition, and available instantly in chairside monitors.

Our team will then numb the area with a local anesthetic, and we also offer sedation to help you reach a deeper state of calm and relaxation, with little to no memory of the procedure at all. We then open the area of the gums above these teeth so that we can access and remove them with a pair of forceps! We then suture the area closed. You can usually return to your normal routine after a day or two of rest.

Other Situations That Call for Removal

In addition to preventing wisdom tooth impaction, our team can also remove teeth to make room for orthodontics treatment or to pave the way for dental prosthetics, such as dentures. Tooth extraction can also remove teeth too damaged, decayed, or infected to be addressed with a traditional restoration, such as a crown. If you have any questions about how we remove teeth to avoid issues like wisdom tooth impaction, or if you want to make a visit for you or a member of your family, then contact our team today.

Elm Creek Dental Offers Restorative Dentistry

We don’t want your wisdom teeth to cause poor alignment or even an impaction. To find out more about removing your third molars, then call Elm Creek Dental in Maple Grove, MN, today at 763-416-0606.