I’ve got serious issues going on with my wisdom teeth - three of them have come in and not only are they sharp as hell to the point of cutting the inside of my cheeks up constantly, but there’s not enough room in my mouth for them so they’ve broken two other, perfectly good teeth and they cause me migraines. My insurance won’t pay for oral surgery (which is needed because even though they’ve popped up, they’re really long and still partially embedded in my jaw) for a year. And I have to get the broken teeth yanked out, too, which is also oral surgery, so total it’ll cost me like…$3000 without insurance.
Thing is though, I have to get the fourth one taken out at the same time, because a lot of wisdom teeth that don’t come out get cysts and infections and the like, which isn’t fun and can actually kill you if you wait too long.
I suggest getting them taken out if your insurance will pay for it, partially because it might save you the effort in the future, and partially because I’ve always felt great when I stick an insurance company with a big bill that I don’t have to pay much of.
~Tasha
It’s usually worth it. In general, they are hard to reach and only partially exposed, making them very prone to decay. Worst case is that they come in sideways and cause the molars in front to fracture (I’ve seen x-rays; not pretty).
I had mine removed because three of them were growing forward (towards the front of my mouth) instead of up. So they were pushing my other teeth forward. In my case it was needed. If they’re not bothering you and there doesn’t seem a high likelyhood that they will, I would say don’t bother.
This of course should not be construed as medical advise, but simply a statement of what I would do in the situation.
Let the wisdom tooth horror stories begin!
My only pieces of advice are:
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If you do it - do all of them at once. You will find lots of reasons why you will never go back.
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NEVER (and I mean N E V E R) let the pain meds wear off. If they say “take every 4 hours”, take them every 3 1/2 hours! That 30 minutes of waiting for them to take hold after they wear off completely is the longest 30 minutes you will ever experience.
Good luck, Mr. Phelps…
I had all 4 taken out when I was 18. They were all impacted. I had it done under local with nitrous. It literally took less than 20 minutes and my recovery was a piece of cake.
I understand my situation is not typical. My sister had hers done under general anaesthesia and puked for three days.
For me, I think it was totally worth it.
Wow, thanks for all the advice and input! My insurance would very likely cover the entire procedure(s), and I am not likely to lose coverage in the near future, so that’s not a problem. My dentist uses general anaesthesia for something like this, and I would inform him about my usual response, which is to upchuck convulsively for a day or so following – this can be mitigated BTW if you inform the anaesthetist.
I just hate to volunteer for an invasive procedure when there’s nothing wrong. It goes against the grain.
Trule, its up to you. But when I had 3 removed at the same time, i only needed 1 of the pain meds I was given 9whatever it was). I threw the rest away.
Lucky bastard. I was like ASAKMOTSD. The first two came out while I was in college after getting the gum infected several times. After the removal, I was of course still numb. The dentist gave me a prescription but the medical center on campus where the pharmacy was was closed. So I thought I’d just wait until morning to get it filled because it would be so much cheaper since I had no insurance and was paying cash.
Long story short, I frantically searched for and finally found a late-night pharmacy in College Station at 11 p.m. The moral is, get the prescription filled and enjoy the meds.