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Just one data point, but: as a teenager I was told "your wisdom teeth might end up being fine, but most people end up having to get them pulled; it's up to you
by veidr 11y ago
Just one data point, but: as a teenager I was told "your wisdom teeth might end up being fine, but most people end up having to get them pulled; it's up to you." I passed.
Fast-forward a decade or so, one of them was, to use the technical term, totally fucked. It was impacted, uncleanable in parts and thus had to be removed, but had gotten so wedged in that it not only pushed my other teeth crooked, but was extremely hard to extract, requiring the dentist to go fetch some other stronger dentist and then they both worked on it and it took way longer than planned to get all the pieces out.
That was lame, but I still have the other three, and now my dentist says the same thing is happening to those (and even I can tell, it is).
So now I am 41 with a busy job and young children, and I have to find time to have three wisdom teeth extracted in a procedure that is now going to be much more difficult than the simple extraction suggested by my dentist 20 years ago.
So, in my case, I wish I did it then.
- mixmastamyk 11y agoIndeed, if you need it done, the older you are the harder it becomes as they grow and dig-in and fuck up their neighbors. In my case I desperately needed it (8 wisdom teeth), but no one was around to tell me as a teenager. So there I am a few decades later with power tools in my mouth for hours, dental assistant was about to faint...
- lips 11y agoIt would seem that modeling the patient jaw development over time would be appropriate. But of course this would cost $$$ as well. Then again, if docs were to charge smaller repeating sums for the modeling, and remove the problematic cases for free, they might end up making the same amount, with less liability and work.