Wisdom Teeth Extraction

Wisdom teeth can be affected by decay or impacted, namely unable to fully erupt. These issues can result in severe pain and discomfort and significantly increase the risk of developing infections. Hence, getting the impacted tooth treated at the earliest is crucial in preventing damage to your jawbone and adjoining teeth.

What Are the Symptoms of Impacted Wisdom Teeth?

• Since the tooth gets stuck in the jawbone socket or is unable to penetrate the gum, the most common symptom is pain and discomfort, especially when you bite and chew food or brush your teeth.
• Discharge of pus and bleeding gums may also occur.
• When the impacted tooth is left untreated for a long time, it may affect the jawbone or the adjoining teeth and cause additional pain.
• In the later stages, impacted wisdom teeth may lead to jawbone deterioration.
• The risk of developing infections would increase, as the microbes could decay the tissues near the impacted tooth.

What Is the Solution?

The dentist will first conduct a thorough diagnosis of the impacted tooth. If the impaction isn’t too severe, we may be able to save the tooth using medication. However, if the tooth is at a somewhat awkward or inclined angle and therefore more likely to become stuck, we would have to extract the tooth entirely.

To extract the wisdom tooth, the dentist will administer local anesthesia to numb the tooth and the surrounding tissues before commencing. If the tooth is concealed under the gums, we will make a small slit on the tissue to expose it. The dentist will use forceps to grip the tooth firmly and then shake it to loosen it from the surrounding tissues. Once the tooth is loosened, the dentist will remove it in one firm motion. If the tooth can’t be removed in one piece, we may have to section it into smaller fragments and remove them individually.

Once the wisdom tooth has been removed, we will provide aftercare instructions to enable optimal healing.

To schedule a consultation with our dental experts, call any of our offices in Livonia at (734) 425-7888, Ann Arbor at (734) 888-8886, or book an appointment online.