4 ms·

My bugbear with dentists in the US (after living my first 30 years in the UK) is that they all continually hassle me to have my wisdom teeth removed. Said teeth

My bugbear with dentists in the US (after living my first 30 years in the UK) is that they all continually hassle me to have my wisdom teeth removed. Said teeth have never caused me any problems and are all through the gums. I can only assume it's dogma or an opportunity to bill insurance for costly unnecessary surgery.

electronbeam 2y ago
I was told they get harder to remove when you’re older
- doe_eyes 2y ago
  It's one of these areas where people (including medical professionals) hold strong beliefs, but then it turns out that there are other highly-developed countries where this is not routinely practiced, and the outcomes aren't necessarily different. Routine wisdom teeth removal is not a thing in most of Europe. Another random example are colonoscopies and routine flu vaccines (except for the elderly).
  - macNchz 2y ago
    I've generally assumed the simplest explanation is that many of these weakly-supported procedures are regular, consistent income streams for the people who perform them in the US: my four wisdom teeth (that were causing me serious issues at age 19) cost $2k to remove nearly 20 years ago, and I know colonoscopies are billed to insurance in the thousands. There's not much incentive to move to cheaper tests or wait-and-see, when you can just do it to everyone who reaches a certain age by default. Presumably flu shots are good business for the manufacturers, though I'm not sure about the science. After having the flu as a healthy late-twenty-something a while ago, which was...intensely horrible, I've chosen to get it ever since.
    - kalleboo 2y ago
      It's not always true though. My dentist in Europe pushed me to get my wisdom teeth removed early "because you're going to need to get them removed eventually anyway" at a government clinic with no profit incentive.
  - tzs 2y ago
    Flu may not be too dangerous in people who aren't elderly but it still sucks. Can a non-elderly, not in any other high risk group, person get seasonal flu vaccination in Europe if they ask for it, and is it covered by European health care systems?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - trq01758 2y ago
      Not covered, but I can get the shot at nearby pharmacy for 15€.
    - MandieD 2y ago
      They're not only covered by the gesetzliche Krankenkassen (German public health insurance providers, mandatory if you don't meet the criteria for private insurance), mine gives me a little bonus if I prove I've gotten various vaccines, including annual COVID booster and flu.
  - MandieD 2y ago
    Not sure which country you're talking about, but in Germany, the public health insurances cheerfully pay for annual flu and COVID boosters for everyone.
- genter 2y ago
  https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/wisdom-teeth.html https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/wisdom-teeth.html
  - alexjplant 2y ago
    This guy infamously has a problem with each and every HN user and chooses to display an NSFW image saying such if your request's referrer header has news.ycombinator.com. Don't click.
    - genter 2y ago
      Sorry, I thought he disabled that.
      - nicolas_t 2y ago
        I believe he did? At least I didn't run into that n a long time.
    - edgineer 2y ago
      "Some people, when confronted with a problem, think 'I know, I'll quote Jamie Zawinski.' Now they have two problems."
- sidewndr46 2y ago
  Yes, it's much harder for a dentist to convince a 30 year old adult than is to convince a 12 year and his helicopter parents.
hcrisp 2y ago
I asked mine, and he said the wisdom teeth can crowd teeth if the jaw size is too small causing buckling (a cosmetic issue). More seriously, it can interfere with nerves in your jaw (again because of size constraints) causing numbness / paralysis, etc. Likely the decision to remove them comes down to your genetic / jaw structure and whether they have fully come in yet or not. https://www.webmd.com/oral-health/wisdom-teeth-removal-necessary https://www.webmd.com/oral-health/wisdom-teeth-removal-neces...
- sidewndr46 2y ago
  The other thing that can interfere with the nerves in your jaw is having them extracted. One of my family members has no feeling there because the extraction was bungled years ago.
- bsimpson 2y ago
  I had mine done in college. I really didn't want to do it. I would have been totally happy to buck the pressure of "this is what everyone does," but the thing that made me reluctantly agree to it was an explanation that if I didn't, they would bore holes into my then-back teeth as they grew in and I'd have a big problem to deal with. As I understood it, teeth normally grow straight up, but wisdom teeth grow sideways (with the tops facing the front of your mouth). The wisdom teeth then hit the rest of your teeth and basically bulldoze your mouth. I have no idea how true/bullshit that is, but it's what I was told to get me to finally acquiesce to the procedure.
  - thyristan 2y ago
    It can be true for some people. Look at the lower right one on the xray here: https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/wisdom-teeth.html https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/wisdom-teeth.html
    - bsimpson 2y ago
      Unless you wanna see an adviceanimals take on a hairy ballsack, you've gotta open that incognito. I don't think Jamie wants HN traffic on his blog.
galleywest200 2y ago
I am in the US and I had my wisdom teeth filled. Granted after the procedure my dentist said he was never filling wisdom teeth again, lol.
- sidewndr46 2y ago
  Filled? What does this mean?
  - filoleg 2y ago
    It means they fixed cavities on those teeth.
PlunderBunny 2y ago
I've also retained my wisdom teeth, despite some of them not erupting and being impacted. It's certainly easier to get them out when you're young compared to when you're older, but if you've still got them as an adult, it's not worth removing them unless they're causing a problem, even if insurance is paying for it (all procedures can have side-effects).
wccrawford 2y ago
I had the opposite experience. I told the dentist that I thought my wisdom teeth were causing my migraines, and they said it was possible but unlikely, and didn't really recommend removing them. I pushed, and they relented. They were right, it didn't make any difference. Oddly, I only had wisdom teeth on one side, and not the other. So only 2 teeth were removed.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  sounds like the dentist was on the level. lotta things it could be, and those may be easy to address without dental surgery. did you ever figure out what the root cause of the migraines was?
  - wccrawford 2y ago
    Unfortunately, no. And they've been getting worse over the years. I have, however, found Excedrin Migraine is really good at dealing with them, so it's not as big a deal as it was, since I hadn't found anything back then.
nkrisc 2y ago
Mine recommends the same, but it’s not because I need them out now, but because by the time I’m elderly I might be more likely to need them out, but by that time the surgery might be very difficult for me. As he pitched it to me, “get them out now while you’re young and it’s no big deal”. I haven’t decided yet since they cause me no problems now and so far I’m to keep them relatively clean, but I have known several elderly family members who eventually needed molars removed because they hadn’t/couldn’t clean them well enough and it was a very difficult surgery for them.
patmcc 2y ago
>>>I can only assume it's dogma or an opportunity to bill insurance for costly unnecessary surgery. This may be specific to location, but would it be the same dentist recommending the treatment as performing the surgery? Here (BC, Canada) everyone I've known who's had wisdom teeth removed had it done by a specialist, not the dentist that suggested it (which presumably cuts down on self-serving recommendations).
- lesuorac 2y ago
  I mean not if the dentist refers them to a specialist. Usually that involves a kickback; there's a whole slew of problems with that in the US with lactation specialists referring parents to dentists over a tongue tie problem without actually viewing the baby.
bcrl 2y ago
They're not a problem until they are. I recently had a molar out likely due to damage from an impacted wisdom tooth I had out years ago. The rear of the molar was compromised on the back, and there was no way to save the tooth. If I had my molars out earlier when I was young, it probably wouldn't have been an issue.
kelnos 2y ago
It's so odd how experiences vary on this. I'm in my 40s (in the US) and still have all four of my wisdom teeth. When I was a young adult, my dentist told me that they were all intact, and (over time) not moving, so there was no reason to do anything with them. I've gone through a few other dentists in other places since then, and no dentist (including a recent one I had that annoyed me by recommending harmless but unnecessary procedures so they could pad their bill for my insurance) has ever pushed me to get my wisdom teeth removed. When I've started as a new patient at a new practice, they've noted I still have them, and after I say "yup, they've been stable since I was a kid, and cause me no pain", they immediately move on and don't bring it up again.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

electronbeam 2y ago

I was told they get harder to remove when you’re older

doe_eyes 2y ago
It's one of these areas where people (including medical professionals) hold strong beliefs, but then it turns out that there are other highly-developed countries where this is not routinely practiced, and the outcomes aren't necessarily different. Routine wisdom teeth removal is not a thing in most of Europe. Another random example are colonoscopies and routine flu vaccines (except for the elderly).
- macNchz 2y ago
  I've generally assumed the simplest explanation is that many of these weakly-supported procedures are regular, consistent income streams for the people who perform them in the US: my four wisdom teeth (that were causing me serious issues at age 19) cost $2k to remove nearly 20 years ago, and I know colonoscopies are billed to insurance in the thousands. There's not much incentive to move to cheaper tests or wait-and-see, when you can just do it to everyone who reaches a certain age by default. Presumably flu shots are good business for the manufacturers, though I'm not sure about the science. After having the flu as a healthy late-twenty-something a while ago, which was...intensely horrible, I've chosen to get it ever since.
  - kalleboo 2y ago
    It's not always true though. My dentist in Europe pushed me to get my wisdom teeth removed early "because you're going to need to get them removed eventually anyway" at a government clinic with no profit incentive.
- tzs 2y ago
  Flu may not be too dangerous in people who aren't elderly but it still sucks. Can a non-elderly, not in any other high risk group, person get seasonal flu vaccination in Europe if they ask for it, and is it covered by European health care systems?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - trq01758 2y ago
    Not covered, but I can get the shot at nearby pharmacy for 15€.
  - MandieD 2y ago
    They're not only covered by the gesetzliche Krankenkassen (German public health insurance providers, mandatory if you don't meet the criteria for private insurance), mine gives me a little bonus if I prove I've gotten various vaccines, including annual COVID booster and flu.
- MandieD 2y ago
  Not sure which country you're talking about, but in Germany, the public health insurances cheerfully pay for annual flu and COVID boosters for everyone.
genter 2y ago
https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/wisdom-teeth.html https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/wisdom-teeth.html
- alexjplant 2y ago
  This guy infamously has a problem with each and every HN user and chooses to display an NSFW image saying such if your request's referrer header has news.ycombinator.com. Don't click.
  - genter 2y ago
    Sorry, I thought he disabled that.
    - nicolas_t 2y ago
      I believe he did? At least I didn't run into that n a long time.
  - edgineer 2y ago
    "Some people, when confronted with a problem, think 'I know, I'll quote Jamie Zawinski.' Now they have two problems."
sidewndr46 2y ago
Yes, it's much harder for a dentist to convince a 30 year old adult than is to convince a 12 year and his helicopter parents.

hcrisp 2y ago

I asked mine, and he said the wisdom teeth can crowd teeth if the jaw size is too small causing buckling (a cosmetic issue). More seriously, it can interfere with nerves in your jaw (again because of size constraints) causing numbness / paralysis, etc. Likely the decision to remove them comes down to your genetic / jaw structure and whether they have fully come in yet or not. https://www.webmd.com/oral-health/wisdom-teeth-removal-necessary https://www.webmd.com/oral-health/wisdom-teeth-removal-neces...

sidewndr46 2y ago
The other thing that can interfere with the nerves in your jaw is having them extracted. One of my family members has no feeling there because the extraction was bungled years ago.
bsimpson 2y ago
I had mine done in college. I really didn't want to do it. I would have been totally happy to buck the pressure of "this is what everyone does," but the thing that made me reluctantly agree to it was an explanation that if I didn't, they would bore holes into my then-back teeth as they grew in and I'd have a big problem to deal with. As I understood it, teeth normally grow straight up, but wisdom teeth grow sideways (with the tops facing the front of your mouth). The wisdom teeth then hit the rest of your teeth and basically bulldoze your mouth. I have no idea how true/bullshit that is, but it's what I was told to get me to finally acquiesce to the procedure.
- thyristan 2y ago
  It can be true for some people. Look at the lower right one on the xray here: https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/wisdom-teeth.html https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/wisdom-teeth.html
  - bsimpson 2y ago
    Unless you wanna see an adviceanimals take on a hairy ballsack, you've gotta open that incognito. I don't think Jamie wants HN traffic on his blog.

galleywest200 2y ago

I am in the US and I had my wisdom teeth filled. Granted after the procedure my dentist said he was never filling wisdom teeth again, lol.

sidewndr46 2y ago
Filled? What does this mean?
- filoleg 2y ago
  It means they fixed cavities on those teeth.

PlunderBunny 2y ago

I've also retained my wisdom teeth, despite some of them not erupting and being impacted. It's certainly easier to get them out when you're young compared to when you're older, but if you've still got them as an adult, it's not worth removing them unless they're causing a problem, even if insurance is paying for it (all procedures can have side-effects).

wccrawford 2y ago

I had the opposite experience. I told the dentist that I thought my wisdom teeth were causing my migraines, and they said it was possible but unlikely, and didn't really recommend removing them. I pushed, and they relented. They were right, it didn't make any difference. Oddly, I only had wisdom teeth on one side, and not the other. So only 2 teeth were removed.

red-iron-pine 2y ago
sounds like the dentist was on the level. lotta things it could be, and those may be easy to address without dental surgery. did you ever figure out what the root cause of the migraines was?
- wccrawford 2y ago
  Unfortunately, no. And they've been getting worse over the years. I have, however, found Excedrin Migraine is really good at dealing with them, so it's not as big a deal as it was, since I hadn't found anything back then.

nkrisc 2y ago

Mine recommends the same, but it’s not because I need them out now, but because by the time I’m elderly I might be more likely to need them out, but by that time the surgery might be very difficult for me. As he pitched it to me, “get them out now while you’re young and it’s no big deal”. I haven’t decided yet since they cause me no problems now and so far I’m to keep them relatively clean, but I have known several elderly family members who eventually needed molars removed because they hadn’t/couldn’t clean them well enough and it was a very difficult surgery for them.

patmcc 2y ago

>>>I can only assume it's dogma or an opportunity to bill insurance for costly unnecessary surgery. This may be specific to location, but would it be the same dentist recommending the treatment as performing the surgery? Here (BC, Canada) everyone I've known who's had wisdom teeth removed had it done by a specialist, not the dentist that suggested it (which presumably cuts down on self-serving recommendations).

lesuorac 2y ago
I mean not if the dentist refers them to a specialist. Usually that involves a kickback; there's a whole slew of problems with that in the US with lactation specialists referring parents to dentists over a tongue tie problem without actually viewing the baby.

bcrl 2y ago

They're not a problem until they are. I recently had a molar out likely due to damage from an impacted wisdom tooth I had out years ago. The rear of the molar was compromised on the back, and there was no way to save the tooth. If I had my molars out earlier when I was young, it probably wouldn't have been an issue.

kelnos 2y ago

It's so odd how experiences vary on this. I'm in my 40s (in the US) and still have all four of my wisdom teeth. When I was a young adult, my dentist told me that they were all intact, and (over time) not moving, so there was no reason to do anything with them. I've gone through a few other dentists in other places since then, and no dentist (including a recent one I had that annoyed me by recommending harmless but unnecessary procedures so they could pad their bill for my insurance) has ever pushed me to get my wisdom teeth removed. When I've started as a new patient at a new practice, they've noted I still have them, and after I say "yup, they've been stable since I was a kid, and cause me no pain", they immediately move on and don't bring it up again.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]