Fixing Impacted Teeth

We all know the drill when baby teeth fall out: you put the tooth under your pillow, wait for the Tooth Fairy to visit, hope for a big payout, and then wait for a new adult tooth to emerge where the missing baby tooth was. Usually, this happens without fail. But in some cases, adult teeth simply do not appear when and where they are expected. These are what are known as impacted teeth. While impacted teeth develop in the jaw like other teeth, they aren’t able to emerge. This failure to erupt can be either full or partial, which means that in some cases no tooth emerges at all, and in others, the tip of the tooth beings to erupt from the gums but is then unable to continue its course. Most commonly, this failure to erupt is due to overcrowding.

Commonly impacted teeth

Two teeth that are more likely than others to become impacted are the upper canines and the wisdom teeth. While they occupy very different parts of the mouth and also perform different functions as teeth, both the upper canines and wisdom teeth are later to come in than other teeth and for that reason sometimes find themselves without enough room to erupt. In the typical pattern of adult tooth eruption, the upper canines come in after the incisors and premolars have erupted. If these teeth are crooked or simply don’t leave enough room for the upper canines, they can get stuck with no space to grow into. There may also be a genetic component to impacted upper canines, as this is a phenomenon that tends to run in families.

Likewise, wisdom teeth typically don’t erupt until young adulthood. As such, they run into problems of space and angle if there isn’t enough room left in the jaw for them to occupy or if they start to come in sideways, threatening the integrity of the existing teeth around them.

How and Why to Treat Impacted Teeth

The treatment of impacted teeth is important for a number of reasons: from the structure of your smile to the integrity of your teeth and jaw, it is important to ensure that impacted teeth are afforded the room they need to erupt in the jaw or, more frequently in the case of wisdom teeth, are removed so as not to damage any of your existing neighboring teeth.

The signs and symptoms of impacted teeth include the following: pain, an aching head or jaw, malodorous breath, a prolonged foul taste in the mouth, or an adult tooth that simply doesn’t appear (or fully emerge) after a baby tooth has been missing for a while. If you think that you or one of your children may have an impacted tooth, you should call your dentist for a consult. She or he will do an examination and maybe even take dental X-rays to help them determine to what extent the tooth in question might be impacted. This information, along with consideration of the type of tooth in question, will help her or him decide which course of treatment that is most appropriate in that case. This could involve either oral surgery or orthodontic treatment, both of which can be used successfully to either move the impacted tooth to a more suitable position for eruption or remove it to avoid further complications.

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