I started a thread about out of proportion rage.
My bugaboo is every single time I see the dentist, they want to remove my wisdom teeth, even though they have never caused any problems. Several posters have experienced the same thing. Made me curious as to how prevalent this practice is.
Hence, poll.
A couple of mine came in pretty crooked and all were hard to reach while brushing. I didn’t have an immediate problem with them but had pretty good insurance at the time and elected to have them taken out. The oral surgery was 100% covered.
You’re missing an option from your poll:
Never had 'em removed and never been told I need to.
Ditto ^^^^
I had mine out before they surfaced. X-rays showed that the top two were wedged behind other teeth and were going to grow into my sinuses, one bottom one was going to grow forward into the other teeth, and the other was going to erupt out of the side of my gum.
I had general anesthesia for the procedure. They didn’t really have roots yet when they were removed, so the recovery wasn’t bad at all.
Yes. Without that you are really poisoning the well. Mine came in with no problem and I was never pressured to have them removed.
I have three of my wisdom teeth left. One was rotting out and causing me pain, so I had it pulled. I will hang onto the rest as long as they don’t cause me a problem. It pisses me off that the dentist keeps suggesting that my kids have theirs pulled even though there are no problems with them.
“I tried to keep them, but there was an issue, and they needed to be removed.”
There are legitimate reasons to remove them prophylactically, and I wish I had it done at 19 like I was told.
The roots continue to grow a bit, so the older you are the more risk there is of damage to the nerves that run right through there. (I forget the name).
I lost sensation to half my mouth after removal at age 30. It took 2 years to get back to maybe 95% which is where it will probably stay. It’s hard to say but I’m convinced i lost some of my tasting ability too.
Had all 4 of mine removed via oral surgery. All four of them were impacted, growing completely horizontally directly into my other teeth. Keeping them was absolutely not an option. The X-Rays were positively scary.
Somehow my Dad managed to scrape together the several thousand dollars it took. I was under general anesthesia. Recovery was a few days, on Vicodin the whole time. Not much pain but my dear lord I hated the holes that were left and took a long time for the gums to grow in and fill them in.
Not great answer options, I was advised to have them removed when I was a teen, I never did. No pressure from dental visits since.
This was my first poll, obviously I need to put a little more thought into it.
I’ll do better next time, promise.
Did not vote in poll because you do not have an option for “I have my wisdom teeth and have never received any pressure from my dentist to have them removed because they aren’t a problem”
The reason mine are not a problem is that I had orthodontia that involved yanking several other molars, which I am missing, and as long as they were yanking out teeth they left room for wisdom teeth when they came in, rather than me being subjected to yet more tooth-removals at that point.
I chose the second option as that seemed to fit best, but it’s not really right. I had mine extracted when I had cracked another tooth next to the bottom left wisdom tooth and the dentist said since it had to be extracted, I might as well get the wisdom teeth done too as they were rotting anyway.
I have probably three wisdom teeth, none of which cause any pain. I don’t get any pressure to remove them because I don’t dentist.
A suggestion on the poll: if you’re going to have multiple choice anyway, separate the question about having them and the question about dentist pressure.
That’s my situation as well. I never had the slightest problem with them, and I still have all my teeth at 62 (although I have one crown). I checked number one.
I had two removed when one became decayed.
A couple of weeks ago, I had another one removed so that the periodontist could go in and rehabilitate my severely diseased gums. In January I’ve got to go back and get the last one pulled so he can do the same procedure on the other side.
It’s expensive. He may be exaggerating how badly I need the wisdoms removed just to get more money out of me. But my gums certainly feel better on the side where he extracted the tooth. I anticipate them only getting better when he takes out the last one. I don’t use the wisdom teeth but I do use the others. Seems like a fair trade.
I didn’t have room in my mouth for them when they started coming, I was not having any immediate problems but the Dr. said to do it, so we did. I chose #2, but I guess it could have been #3.
+1
I still have all mine (I’m in my late 40’s). My dentist has recently suggested in removing them, but I get the impression (from the weakness of his responses) he just wants to do it to earn a quick buck. I’ve seen my X-Rays… they don’t come near to anything else.
partial removal should also be an option.
jaw size, problems and hygiene ability can be different between upper and lower