WISDOM TEETH SPECIALIST

Many people simply don’t have enough room in their mouth for wisdom teeth, leading to a variety of oral health problems when they eventually emerge. If you need to remove your wisdom teeth, schedule an appointment with Gohar Hovsepyan, DDS, or Káren Baghdasaryan, DDS, MBA, AAACD, AFAAID, at Viva Smile in Van Nuys and Granada Hills, California. The dental experts can treat your wisdom teeth to give you a healthy and beautiful smile again.

Wisdom teeth are your third set of molars that tend to come in during your late teens or early adulthood.

Wisdom teeth were essential for early humans, whose diet of uncooked meats and roots, leaves, and nuts necessitated more grinding surfaces to crush up food for digestion. They’re somewhat unnecessary now because we soften our food by cooking it and cut and crush it with utensils.

What are impacted wisdom teeth?

For many people there simply isn’t enough room in their jaw to accommodate a third set of molars. For those people, their wisdom teeth can become impacted. Fully impacted wisdom teeth get stuck under the gum, while partially impacted wisdom teeth break through the gums, but not all the way.

What happens if I don’t remove my impacted wisdom teeth?

For some people, impacted wisdom teeth don’t cause any problems. But for others, they can lead to the development of a number of oral health problems, such as:

  • Decay
  • Cavities
  • Infection
  • Difficulty flossing
  • Crowding of nearby teeth
  • Damage to other teeth
  • Gum disease
  • Cysts

Wisdom teeth are also hard to clean, which can lead to food getting trapped in them.

What happens during a wisdom tooth extraction?

Wisdom teeth extraction is a fairly simple outpatient procedure, so you’ll be able to go home immediately after the surgery.

Your dentist will use a combination of local anesthetics to numb your mouth, sedation anesthesia to relax you, and general anesthesia to put you to sleep during the procedure. Once you’re anesthetized, your dentist makes an incision in your gum and removes the tooth, then closes up the incision with stitches.

The whole procedure usually takes around 30 to 60 minutes. You’ll be able to resume your daily activities soon after the surgery, but your mouth might take up to six weeks to fully heal. Eat soft foods for a few days after the surgery and avoid drinking through a straw. Your dentist can recommend pain medications to ease your recovery and may suggest that you use cold compresses to reduce any swelling.

To learn more about wisdom teeth, or to schedule an appointment to have yours extracted, call the Viva Smile office today or book a visit online.