WISDOM TEETH
It is time to talk about one of the most feared surgeries we maxillofacial surgeons do, wisdom teeth, those that appear when we are 16 until we are 25 years old and we can´t be bothered to have removed.
But I have good news for you! All wisdom teeth are not equally annoying! and if you trust a maxillofacial surgeon you have no need to fear, surgery will be quick and the postoperative will not be too bad.
But what is this surgery like? very simple! it is about removing the tooth! :-). One of the biggest concerns people have is whether they will hurt, if the postoperative period will be very annoying and if that nerve that runs inside the jaw and gives your lip sensitivity will be affected. But let´s break this down:
1- Does the extraction of a wisdom tooth hurt? Surgery of wisdom tooth is not painful and if you notice any discomfort, some more anesthesia will be needed and finally the discomfort disappears. The surgery is usually done under local anaesthetic and only in cases where the position of the tooth is too difficult or the patient has a lot of apprehension, a venous conscious sedation can be performed. My recommendation is that this surgery with sedation should only be done in medical or dental surgery clinics with an approved operating theatre and always performed by a maxillofacial MIR specialised surgeon with a doctor degree.
2- Is the Postoperative painful? It depends on the position of the tooth. If you have a tooth that is completely covered by the jaw bone , the surgery to do is major and consequently the postoperative will be worse, with more inflammation and discomfort. But even in these cases, we give patients enough medication in order to be less annoying.
Different positions of the wisdom tooth, sometimes it is also erupting and lays next to the second molar.
3- What about the dental nerve? The alveolar nerve is a branch of the V cranial par nerve or trigeminal nerve and provides sensitivity to the lip of the same side, in any case nothing to do with the mobility of the lip which is given by the facial nerve or VII cranial par nerve , so it is not true that the mouth will hang. If the nerve is injured, there will be lack of sensitivity in the lip, but without any aesthetic impact. Not all wisdom teeth have risk of injury to the nerve during surgery, in fact only a minority of them have. For the vast majority its removal poses no threat to the nerve.
When we suspect that a wisdom tooth surgery is very likely to cause injury to the alveolar nerve, we must perform a CAT Scan to three-dimensionally assess the contact of the nerve with the roots of the tooth.
I hope you have understood some things about surgery of wisdom teeth, but if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask!
