THE TRUTH ABOUT WISDOM TEETH

By Nikos Papadakis, Dental Surgeon

When it comes to teeth, most of us, but not all, are very “wise.” The infamous wisdom teeth, so named because they usually appear after age 18, “the age of wisdom,” are the last teeth behind our permanent teeth.

There are exceptions, however. In certain cases, they don't come up at all due to lack of space.  It is also possible for wisdom teeth to come up after 50 or 60 years of age provided that the teeth that have been impeding their rise fall out. And other times, wisdom teeth are not included at all with our permanent teeth.

Pericoronitis: This is the inflammation of gum around the crown of a not-fully erupted wisdom tooth and the most frequent cause for extracting the tooth. The inflammation is caused by micro-organisms that invade the area between tooth and gum. The pain is the most usual symptom, while it can be accompanied by inability to open the mouth, fever or abscess.  Initially it's treated by cleaning the gum section around the tooth and/or with antibiotics. The final treatment lies in extracting the wisdom tooth. Semi-erupted wisdom teeth more frequently display pericoronitis because food particles can get lodged between gum and tooth. Wisdom teeth that remain hidden, usually display no symptoms.  

Orthodontic problems: It's possible that the existence of wisdom teeth will hinder or obstruct the treatment of an already existing orthodontic problem. Periodontitis and decay: Many times wisdom teeth can impede oral hygiene from being applied correctly on the surrounding teeth. Bone and gum shrinkage can occur as well as cavities. For this reason, extracting wisdom teeth is preferred so that other more important teeth can be saved. 

Extraction: To extract a non-erupted or semi-erupted wisdom tooth requires surgery and local anaesthesia. An incision is performed over the gum covering the tooth. Then, with the drill, the part of bone covering the tooth is removed. Then, the tooth is pried loose and extracted from the jaw bone. Certain times because of lack of space it is necessary to break the tooth in order to extract it. Afterwards the incision is sutured.  A fully erupted wisdom tooth only requires a simple extraction, especially for the upper wisdoms.

 Wisdom teeth in a man are left-over evolutionary organs that were useful in the past while jawbones were bigger and food consisted of harder substances. With the development of human type, wisdom teeth were made obsolete because food was better processed and softer.