Impacted, semi-impacted or crowded teeth may lead to various oral and dental problems including the inflammation of surrounding gum tissue (pericoronitis), bad breath and tooth decays caused by food accumulation, loss of tissue in the roots and enamels of the adjacent teeth (resorption). Therefore, wisdom teeth, which causes crowd in the mouth although they erupt with a correct angle, may need to be extracted in addition to the semi-impacted and impacted teeth. How to extract wisdom teeth is decided based on x-ray images. Wisdom teeth that erupted with a correct angle but need to be extracted due to the problems such as crowd or decays can be extracted like other teeth. In this case, no surgical operation is needed. However, very few of the problematic wisdom teeth can be extracted this way. A larger part of them has to be extracted through surgical procedures called wisdom tooth operations.

Should Every Impacted Wisdom Tooth Be Extracted?

Wisdom teeth that have been completely occured in the mouth do not need to be pulled out if they are easily cleanable and there is no deep caries on them. However, wisdom teeth that cannot be cleaned comfortably with floss and brush, have caries on them in an incurable condition and grow towards the cheek or tongue, causing the person to involuntarily bite the cheek and tongue, need to be pulled out.