An Oral Surgeon is a dental specialist who is trained to perform surgical procedures on the mouth, teeth, jaws and face.
Most common oral and maxillofacial services include extraction (moderate to difficult, including wisdom teeth), reconstructive dental oral surgery.
Wisdom tooth extraction is a surgical procedure to remove one or more wisdom teeth –the four permanent adult teeth located at the back corners of your mouth on the top and bottom.
If a wisdom tooth does not have room to grow (impacted wisdom tooth) resulting in pain, jawline pain infection or other dental problems, you will likely need to have it pulled.
To prevent potential future problem dentists recommend wisdom tooth extraction even if impacted teeth aren’t currently causing problems.
Why it’s done
Wisdom teeth or third molars, are the last permanent teeth to erupt in the mouth . These teeth usually appear between the ages of 17 and 22 some people never develop wisdom teeth. For others wisdom teeth erupt normally just as their other molars did and cause no problems.
Impacted wisdom teeth erupt only partially or not at all
An Impacted wisdom tooth may
- Grow at an angle towards the next tooth –second molar i.e. Mesio-angular impaction
- Grow at an angle towards the back of the mouth i.e Disto-Angular impaction
- Grow at a right angle to the other teeth, as if the wisdom tooth is lying down within the jaw bone i.e. Horizontal impaction
- Grow straight up or down like other teeth but stay trapped within the jaw bone