Another one here without any wisdom teeth.
Well, since it normally takes 3 posts to wake up a zombie thread…
I currently have all of my wisdom teeth out, and I’m 56. The first one to be pulled, in my 20’s, was the bottom left (my left, not looking at me). It apparently had a cavity or weak area which trapped a midget Gherkin pickle at Easter dinner, and when I bit down on it the tooth split with the pickle acting as a wedge. Talk about agony! I had my dentist pull it as soon as I could get an appointment.
Maybe 12 years later, a new wisdom tooth erupted from that socket and came in somewhat already decayed. I go to my current dentist and tell him it was pulled once before, and he says “that can’t happen”. I had him get my records from the first dentist, and lo and behold, he changes his tune. Tooth comes out and all is well for many years.
2 years ago, a third one erupts through the socket. Once it breaks through the gum, the tooth rapidly begins to decay. I visit the dentist I’m using these days, and he also gives me the “impossible” story. At that point, I don’t care - I just want it out. He has a very hard time getting a grip on the tooth as the exposed parts are very rubbery. Eventually he gets the extra-heavy-duty pliers and just goes for it. He is amazed at what he has extracted - the roots are curved 180 degrees like fishhooks. Apparently this third tooth was developing even before the second one was extracted, and since the tooth couldn’t go up or the roots go deeper, the roots just curved to try to fit in the available space.
I asked him if this was something he was going to write up in a journal and he said no, but that he’d keep it in a jar and it would be a good story around the office. Hopefully the 3rd time’s the charm and I won’t be visited by yet another one.
The other 3 wisdom tooth areas are relatively normal - two were pulled and nothing came back, and the other was pulled but only grew back once.
Eh, zombie but here goes anyway.
I got mine at 28; they came in straight (but not quite aligned with my brace-straightened teeth). I lost my first baby tooth at an age when most kids had lost most of theirs (around 8). My last baby teeth were pulled at 14 before the braces went on.
Clearly, I’m dentally retarded.
My biologically unrelated sister had a 5th wisdom tooth (one in an extra row). Evidently that’s not all that unusual.
Regarding “why”, well, I don’t know about the timing, but hominid tooth toolkit has shown quite a bit of variety over the evolutionary scale. Those that are primarily vegetarians and who chew a lot of rough fiber have serious molars along with pronounced orbital ridges (like the heavy brows of Neanderthals, only more so). It’s possible that human wisdom teeth are relics from vegetarian ancestors.
I think mine started to come in when I was 16 or 17. I only had three, and can only recall experiencing that “OMG WTF is this skull splitting pain?!” feeling once. My orthodontist insisted that they be removed as part of the braces treatment; they were all cut out when I was 18 or 19, I think.
I had one that erupted in my late teens, one that had to be removed at 30 because it was growing into the roots of the tooth in front of it, and two on the top that have been peacefully staying under the surface and causing no problems. My baby teeth took forever to come out. I didn’t lose my first until I was 7 and the last one had to be extracted when I was 14 because otherwise it wasn’t going anywhere. I always thought it a little strange that I’d been shaving for a couple of years before my baby teeth were all gone.