Should wisdom teeth be removed if they don't hurt?

Wisdom teeth are teeth that grow out in many people. During the growth process, some people will feel that their mouths become very painful, or even unbearable. In this case, you need to pay attention to remove them so as not to damage your normal teeth. If there is no pain yet, you can first undergo conservative treatment and you don’t have to go to the hospital to remove them.

Modern medicine generally believes that wisdom teeth are remnants of human evolution. Since wisdom teeth grow at the end of the alveolar bone, the alveolar bone of modern humans has degenerated to varying degrees in length, width, and strength due to increasingly refined eating, resulting in it being unable to provide sufficient space for the eruption of wisdom teeth. As a result, wisdom teeth often erupt ectopically or are impacted due to lack of space. In addition, the degeneration of the wisdom teeth themselves can also lead to insufficient number of erupted teeth and asymmetric eruption.

These eruption abnormalities, coupled with the difficulty in cleaning and prevention, usually manifest clinically as pericoronitis of wisdom teeth, caries of wisdom teeth or adjacent teeth, periodontitis, pulpitis and other diseases, causing severe pain. Therefore, it is recommended to preventively extract abnormal or asymmetrically erupted wisdom teeth as early as possible.

1. Tooth decay: If wisdom teeth have tooth decay, except for very simple tooth decay on the occlusal surface that is not deep, which can be filled, we recommend extraction for those tooth decay on the adjacent surface that require very good technology, as well as those that are very deep and even require root canal treatment to prevent future troubles.

2. Invasion of adjacent teeth: Usually the patient is unaware of the disease, but the dentist finds it out through X-ray diagnosis. Usually there is not enough space for the wisdom teeth to erupt, and they will fall on the second molars, making it difficult to clean the second molars, or even causing partial absorption of the teeth, causing discomfort or toothache for the patient.

3. Insufficient space: Wisdom teeth have been extinct in the history of human evolution. As a result, the dental arches are getting smaller and smaller, and lack of space is common. The swelling and pain are most noticeable when the tumor breaks out. Many people decide to have their wisdom teeth removed because they cannot tolerate the pain.

4. Difficult to clean: Due to lack of space, wisdom teeth often grow crookedly, making it difficult to clean the teeth and leading to tooth decay.

5. No opposing teeth: As mentioned earlier, not everyone will have all four wisdom teeth grow. Therefore, if there is no competing wisdom tooth opposite the wisdom tooth, the wisdom tooth may over-erupt and affect the bite.

6. Impacted teeth: This is usually the most annoying type. Dentists find it difficult to deal with, but patients may not feel it, so they ignore it. This type of tooth is usually buried in the alveolar bone and needs to be extracted if it hurts or if a lesion is diagnosed.

Things to know about wisdom tooth extraction

If you want to remove your wisdom teeth, be sure to find a professional dentist. In addition, after tooth extraction, you should pay attention to:

1. Generally, the longer the extraction time is, the longer the swelling will last, especially for impacted teeth.

2. All blood and saliva must be swallowed within one hour. Do not rinse your mouth to help blood coagulation and wound healing.

3. After returning home, apply ice for an hour. If you still feel uncomfortable, apply hot compress.

4. If you have a fever, you can take sick leave the next day.

5. It is not suitable to remove wisdom teeth when the gums are inflamed. You should take anti-inflammatory drugs and wait until the inflammation is eliminated before extracting the teeth.

6. Girls cannot have wisdom teeth removed during menstruation.