Wisdom teeth will test your wisdom and patience if they do not emerge straight and upright like other teeth. Unfortunately, wisdom teeth are the last to put in an appearance, possibly when you are 18 years of age or even older. By that time there is little room left in the mouth for the teeth to grow straight. Not surprisingly, wisdom teeth may emerge at an angle. Worse, you may have impacted teeth that fail to emerge at all or emerge only partially. Such impacted wisdom tooth must be removed at the earliest.
Impaction types and risks
• A tooth may be fully impacted and it fails to emerge. As such it has no contact with the mouth and could be left in place. However, there is risk of cysts forming around the tooth and bond with adverse future impact. You must keep visiting your dentist and get the impacted wisdom tooth x-rayed at intervals. If there are cysts or other issues then impacted wisdom teeth removal is advisable.
• The wisdom tooth may emerge but not fully. It may emerge at an angle away from the other tooth. In this case it is difficult to clean the tooth and it can become infected. Plus, the gap is responsible for food particles becoming trapped leading to bacterial growth. Bacteria damage the wisdom tooth and the other neighbouring healthy tooth. This type of tooth is best removed.
• A tooth that tilts forward exerts pressure on the next tooth leading to inflammation and pain. Your dentist will x-ray the area and if this is the case you should ask for impacted wisdom teeth removal.
• Even worse, the tooth may be fully impacted and grow horizontally, exerting severe pressure on the other teeth and causing them to move out of alignment. The result is pain and inflammation.
• If the wisdom tooth dentist does not emerge it can cause swelling and bleeding in the gum tissue covering it leading to pericoronitis or swelling around the crown
• The tooth may be infected but there are no symptoms such as inflammation or pain.
In all these cases the best thing to do is to get your dentist to remove the impacted wisdom tooth at the earliest, especially if it is horizontally impacted. Some dentists opine that even when the wisdom tooth has emerged straight it should be removed because cleaning the tooth, especially its rear portion, is tough and nearly impossible. Caries sets in sooner rather than later.
How easy or hard it is to remove impacted wisdom tooth depends on its condition. In any case, it is always a good idea to stay in touch with a dentist for regular checkup of the impacted wisdom tooth once it puts in an appearance or if pain and inflammation indicate complete impaction. Removal of impacted wisdom tooth in time will save future complications and more expenses while preventing damage to the second molars.
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