Bad Wisdom Teeth Compared to Bad Roommates: Wisdom Teeth Complications

Usually, about the time that young adults graduate from high school, they need a dental surgery: wisdom teeth removal.

Is wisdom tooth extraction simply a societal norm in becoming an adult? How do you know if you really need to get your wisdom teeth removed? These are questions we want you to have the answer to! This article can be especially helpful if you are just starting your journey in becoming an independent adult that is in charge of your own dental decisions.

Wisdom Teeth Don’t Always Do What They Should

To help you remember all of the technical details of wisdom teeth complications, we are going to compare the problems that can occur with wisdom teeth to another rite of passage in becoming an adult: moving out of the house.

Getting your own place is one of the final steps in becoming an adult. Most Americans usually do it in their late teens or early twenties. Likewise, wisdom teeth are the final molars to develop as permanent teeth, usually popping in during a person’s late teens or early twenties. Having more molars is a nice idea, kind of like having your own apartment. But it isn’t as easy as it would seem sometimes. Just like you can get sour roommates, you can get difficult wisdom teeth.

Types of Complications

Here are some kinds of complications you can have when your wisdom teeth come in:

King of the World: Crooked Wisdom Teeth

This roommate is extremely messy and slightly arrogant. You might share a room with them, but you will be lucky if you get a small corner to yourself. They put their stuff in your space and you are forced to expand into the living room. Then you get in trouble with the other roommates because your stuff is in their space! If this roommate is going to change, it is going to require a crack down.

Crooked wisdom teeth also like to think that they are kings of the world. They try to grow into other teeth’s space which can cause crowding or decay on the teeth they touch. They can also get on your nerves, just like your king-of-the-world roommate.

Never Leaves the Bedroom: Impacted Wisdom Teeth

Then there are those roommates that never leave the house. They are beyond introverted; they are reclusive. Inevitably, they become anti-social and can be difficult to communicate and connect with.

Just like trying to mature into adulthood without seeing anything outside of your bedroom walls can cause some social difficulties, wisdom teeth that try to develop without leaving their room in the bone of your jaw also cause problems. We call these mal-developers impacted wisdom teeth (your dentist will say that they didn’t “erupt”). The biggest problem: pain. Put simply, they just don’t interact well with your other teeth.

Allergic to Dishes: Partially Erupted Wisdom Teeth

Lastly, we face the dreaded roommate that seems to be strangely allergic to doing the dishes. If they would at least take their dishes to the sink, maybe you could deal with it, but these roommates seem to be aversive to any kind of kitchen cleanup. They leave open food in the fridge and molding bowls of leftovers on the table for weeks. Not only does it smell rancid, it seems impossible to clean. If you turn around in the kitchen with your backpack on, you will knock something all over the floor and make a huge mess.

Partially erupted wisdom teeth (meaning that they only come out of your gums part way) set the stage for everything mentioned above: difficult cleaning, bad smell, and decay. Wisdom teeth are the third set of molars in the very back of your mouth. They are difficult to brush and floss because they are so far back. This alone can cause problems for even normal wisdom teeth, but it is especially bad for partially erupted teeth. The crevasses in the tooth create tunnels and pockets for bacteria to get into. That bacteria can cause lots of decay, especially when your toothbrush isn’t reaching.

Find a Solution

Luckily, you can get rid of wisdom teeth before they start giving you problems. Make an appointment with us today to see if you are going to have any difficult wisdom teeth. We can help you avoid all of those problems.

As far as roommates go, you can’t know beforehand what you are getting into there. And, the solution isn’t as easy as extraction. We wish you luck!