Is it Necessary to Extract an Impacted Widsom Tooth (teeth, pulled, pain)

[Datafeed]

Hi,

I want to get braces and the x-rays revealed an impacted wisdom tooth in my mouth. Is it necessary to to have it extracted? I have never had a problem with it.

If so, what determines if I am put to sleep or not? It's in upper left hand corner of my mouth and not visible

Thanks.

[AnonChick]

If you're getting braces, it means your teeth will be forced to move a bit in your mouth. So it's possible that some of your teeth would be pushed back - which means, by extention, that they might need to move close to - or even on top of - where your impacted wisdom tooth is. By removing that tooth, your -other- teeth will have more room to move. Otherwise they might not be able to go very far from where they already are now.

Straightening teeth isn't just a matter of turning a crooked tooth straight. It involves moving the tooth that grows next to it, to accommodate the new positioning of the first tooth. And that means moving the OTHER other tooth, to accommodate the movement of the 2nd tooth. and so on and so forth, til you have a mouth full of braces moving all your teeth together.

So the wisdom tooth would likely need to get pulled out. Since it's under the surface of the gum, it'll involve an oral surgical procedure. It's not the kind of surgery that requires a hospital operating room and tubes and dials and monitors and what not..you can probably have it done with what's known as "conscious sedation." What this is, in a dental atmosphere..

they give you strong prescription pills that you have to take at the dentist's office. The pills I took were halcyon - prescribed for sleeping but they also have an amnesiac effect. So you're not unconcious - you're actually just literally asleep through the whole thing. And if you wake up during any of it, the amnesiac effect makes it so you don't remeber anything anyway, so there's no trauma at all. You wake up groggy and in a pretty decent mood - you some how end up in the car with your husband driving, and before you can ask how you got there, he's parking at the pharmacy parking lot to get your prescription for pain meds. And you walk in with him, and aren't really sure how you're manging to do that either but you are so it's cool. And you tell the pharmacist how nice she is, and offer her one of your breathe-right nose strips as a present. You're not sure what happens after that, but you notice next that you're in bed and your cat is sitting on your chest, breathing cat-food-stench into your nostrils. You decide that this is not necessarily a bad thing, and tolerate the furry freak for awhile longer.

Two hours later you wake up, and groan, and whine, and reach for the pain meds that you don't remember getting but are sitting on your night stand with a glass of water.

Two days after that you're fine. A little pulpy, but fine.

[Datafeed]

Thanks....very enlightening.

[JordanJP]

Impacted wisdom teeth can cause nasty infections and stuff, at least that's my understanding of it. I do not claim to be an expert or a doctor, though, but depending on your location I may see you as a patient on my ambulance if you don't get it taken care of.

[jambo101]

Most dentists just freeze the tooth then extract it but many dentists will give you the option of being put to sleep for the procedure.
Personally i'd just go with the freezing as todays dentistry when it comes to extraction is totally painless.