It is often recommended to remove wisdom teeth when the wisdom teeth cause pain or have the potential to cause pain or shift other teeth in the future. Your dentist can help you decide whether your wisdom teeth should be removed.
Every individual has a complete set of thirty-two teeth, sixteen on each arch. Of the thirty-two teeth, there are eight incisors, four canines, eight premolars and twelve molars. The first molars emerge when the person reaches the age of six and it is followed by the two lower incisors, just a few months after that. Every single tooth in the mouth erupts at a specific time and they are supposed to occupy their place on the patient’s jaw. Unfortunately, the third molars or the wisdom tooth do not erupt until the patient is around 17 years old, so it is sometimes happens that the tooth never erupts and get impacted.
An impacted tooth is a tooth that did not completely erupt into the mouth and may be hidden under soft tissue and bone. The wisdom tooth is given its name because as you already know, it erupts between the ages of 17 to 21 years, when the patient is already supposedly wise. Since they are the last to erupt, there often is not much space left on the jaw to accommodate it.
The impacted third molar can assume different positions under the bone. It could be positioned horizontally (facing towards or away from the second molar), vertically or it could be tipped slightly towards or away from the second molar. It could also appear in varying depths within the bone and the position that the tooth takes under the bone will determine how complicated the procedure will be.