Wisdom teeth

In fact, this is not a blog. This is a widely-read message board based on fighting ignorance (have a look up top there at the banner logo) where people are often asked to cite their examples and clearly explain their reasoning behind a statement, either w/ personal or professional experience. When you don’t do that, you are called on it. Hyperbole such as ‘villianizing’ doesn’t give you any further credibility here.

But I suspect you didn’t realize any of those things as you didn’t know anything about this website before you found it via search and posted w/o looking at the TOS or even ‘About This Message Board’, did you?

Don’t say you’re sorry when you’re not, it’s disingenuous at best and essentially a lie. What you mean is that you don’t like that I don’t agree with you.

Welcome to the Dope, More: ). Don’t let one hothead scare you off - I really appreciate it when people who actually work in fields we’re complaining about represent their side. :slight_smile:

Give him a break Nawth. He stated his case. 9 out of 10 dentists agree. I agree he should listen to the experiences of people here. But it’s IMHO, and he stated his.

No, Nawth Chucka. I’m fine that you don’t agree, although I didn’t think I had disagreed with any of the other posters. In fact, I thought I had confirmed what many of them had written about their own experiences. And, in fact, I did not call anyone a moron or an imbecile. Those were your words.

I’m fine with people not following my recommendations in my job. I’m fine if you wanted to keep your wisdom teeth and have had no problems with them. We dentists don’t have crystal balls or magic wands. We don’t know if you will be the one person who does fine with his wisdom teeth or not. But we can only make recommendations based on what we have seen in the majority of cases, and that is trouble of some sort.

As for me making a lot of money pulling teeth, like I said originally, it costs more to fill these teeth over and over than to take them out. And if I refer wisdom teeth to the oral surgeon I don’t see how that makes me a lot of money in my office.

What I don’t like to see on the internet is the bashing of my profession. Most of us really do care about our patients and try to help them improve their oral health as it is the window to the rest of the body’s health, in my opinion.

And it is my opinion that this is a blog. And I’ve been reading on it for many many months. Thought most of the posters were thoughtful, informed people. Still feel that way.

They had x-rays that showed the roots. It was very easy to remove my last wisdom tooth, being as it was one of the upper ones (upper left) and there was no tooth below it. Also unlike some of my other wisdom teeth, this one wasn’t impacted (at least one of my other three had had to be sliced out of my gum due to coming in sidewways, and broken in half to get out). It had in fact erupted pretty much normally, but due to modern humans’ mouths being too small to accomodate the extra teeth, it was in a location that was essentially unbrushable and unflossable and thus a party zone for the gum disease I was starting to come down with. Without a properly oriented twin below it on my lower jaw it had no chewing functionality anyway, and it blocked the back of the tooth next to it from being cleaned (which could otherwise be cleaned like the other rear molars in my mouth). So out it came.

The lidocaine hasn’t worn off yet but it was pretty straightforward and painless. I was pretty tense the whole time, forcing myself not to imagine Horrible Things That Could Or Might Be Happening, but it was over in under 10 minutes. I have the tooth as a keepsake and it’s clearly decayed (blackened) on the side where it was pressed against the inside my cheek, so far back my toothbrush would never reach it.

I’m glad that you are here to give the dentist’s side of this. Since I work in medicine I know how it is when people have these ideas that you’re just trying to make as much money as possible and don’t care about the patient.
It’s not like you’re forcing people to get their wisdom teeth removed. There’s nothing wrong with telling someone your opinion that most people are better off without wisdom teeth. I’d expect there are probably more people who end up having problems from wisdom teeth than people who have them removed and then regret losing them.

Hey, try being a lawyer. :smiley:

I think some dentists and hygienists just don’t like working on a “full” mouth.

I get that complaint from the hygienist all the time. “How do you clean those?”. I think it makes it easier on them.

I was told in my teens to take them out.
I moved out when I as 18. Did not have the $. Took tons of Tylenol. They did hurt.

I like having them and heck with the establishment.

Mine were taken out when I was 16. Definitely not enough room for them, things were already crowded and I missed needing braces by “this >< much”. My extractions were done by my dentist, one side in the morning and the other side in the afternoon, to give the lidocaine time to dissipate from the first side. Also, plenty of nitrous. I giggled through both procedures and have a distinct memory of the dentist pulling with all his might with one foot up on the chair just like the cartoons. No idea if the memory is real. I blame the nitrous. Good stuff, that.

Now that I’m 42 and have had issues with my furthest back bottom molars, even if there had been room for the wisdom teeth, I’m sure they would have caused problems so I’m glad they were taken out way back when.

I’m 35. My upper ones came through very late (in fact one of them is still only partially erupted) and the bottom ones never did, because they are totally horizontal. I had one of the upper ones (the fully erupted one) removed three or four years ago, which was no big deal, but the lower ones are still there. I occasionally, like once every few months, feel a slight twinge as they make a little attempt to grow sideways, but otherwise no problem. Two or three years ago I had really bad pain in my jaw, which the dentist thought was down to the impacted wisdom tooth, but it turned out to be an infected nerve in an adjacent one, fixed by root canal (on a four-rooted molar :smiley: ). Before the real cause was discovered, I was told I’d have to have both the impacted wisdom teeth out, which would have been a general-anaesthetic job, so I’m glad I didn’t.

Yes, no , maybe!

But there’s more to my story too. See I would have thought the orthodontist would have said something about the wisdom teeth and potential crowding in her mouth. But when her braces came off and her top two wisdom teeth were coming in, they never mentioned extraction. I will say that the ortho assured me at the start of her treatment that they rarely if ever routinely reccomend the removal healthy teeth to make room for braces etc.

My dentist otoh (who we really like and have no complaints with his care or staff) wanted to take my daughter as a patient for ortho. I think he does invisilign and maybe traditional brackets and wires too, but he’s not an ortho and is under the tutelage of a “class” I dunno. Anyway in having him quote a treatment plan, he recommended she get two or more teeth pulled to make “room”. Instead I went to an orthodontist, and he took the xrays right there and quoted a treatment plan and definitely did not see any reason to remove any molars. Why the difference, I wonder? Very happy with her outcome ntl.

I do think the recommendation for wisdom removal was done by the hygienist who routinely complains in a fun way about my having too many teeth in my mouth! I have all my teeth including 4 wisdom teeth.

If the dentists think they have it rough, wait until I start in on the orthodontists. These guys are nothing but grifters. Taking huge amounts of money to wreck peoples teeth, claiming to straighten teeth that would have aligned as people matured anyway, and generally torturing people with medieval devices designed simply to create aching jaws and a steady income.

Ok, way over the top there. Just like dentists, and every other profession there are going to be some practitioners who do less than the best job, and some who are just money hungry. My experiences are really bad, but I’m not going to paint all orthos with that brush. I’d just say that they don’t always take a practical approach to their work. It’s expensive, not always necessary, they are too quick to remove teeth, and they take a lot of chances by guessing how a young person without a fully developed jaw is going to turn out as an adult. However in their defense, many of their customers have nothing medically wrong with their teeth and are looking for changes to their mouth based on vanity. I actually feel sorry some of these guys facing a patient who wants a perfect smile beyond all reason. At the same time when I was 13, after moving and needing a new orthodontist to finish up the mess another ortho has started, one guy refused to take me as a patient because I could never have a perfect smile. So with those two and one more, there are 3 orthodontists out there who better never run into me again. I’ll rearrange their teeth for free.