As if the teenage years weren't bad enough with breaking voices and raging hormones, you also have wisdom teeth to deal with. You can expect to see your wisdom teeth appear between your late teens and 25. Since not everyone needs to get their wisdom teeth removed, you may decide to take a wait-and-see approach about how you will handle yours. However, you need to know what impact your incoming wisdom teeth can have in your mouth so you don't leave it too lake to seek dental intervention if necessary.
The Impact Of Wisdom Teeth
The question of whether you are going to have an issue with your wisdom teeth depends on whether they will fit into your mouth. If the wisdom teeth are misshapen compared to the shape of your jaw, then the following problems can occur:
- Cavities caused by wisdom teeth trying to cram themselves into a space that is not big enough for them. When this happens, the wisdom teeth can rub against the teeth next door and cause cavities.
- Cysts around the wisdom teeth, which happens when the wisdom tooth does not fully grow into the mouth. Teeth develop within a sac, and if the tooth does not fully erupt into the mouth, the sac remains around the tooth and can cause cysts to develop.
Of course, since you're not a dentist, how do you know whether your wisdom teeth are going to cause a problem?
Regular Dental Exams
If you have managed to avoid going in for a dental check up for the first 17 years of your life, the time to break that habit is right now. The first indication you may have that your wisdom teeth need to come out are when you start to feel some pain. The problem is, the fact you are experiencing pain is an indicator that infection has already started to take hold.
When you get to the age that wisdom teeth start to develop, you must visit your dentist and have both an x-ray and an oral exam to see what sort of impact your wisdom teeth are going to have.
What Happens If You Wait And See?
The worst case scenario of waiting to see what is going to happen with your wisdom teeth is that they can get attacked by bacteria and fall apart within your mouth. This is not a pleasant scenario to experience, and you don't want the bacteria to spread to the other teeth nearby as you could wind up losing them too!
Talk to your dentist about your wisdom teeth before you turn 17 and you may even be one of the lucky ones who gets to keep them in your mouth.
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