Is it better to keep your wisdom teeth, or have them pulled?

I have one wisdom tooth on my right side. The bottom one on that same side never came through and the top one that did never bothered me, so I left it in. However, when the other two on my left side came in they both arrived at the same time and put me into a terrible misery.

I was on a flight back from Bulgaria and the pain hit me almost instantly. The rest of my 2 hour flight back to Germany was spent in agony with me wondering what I had eaten that had given me such a horrific tooth ache. The next day I, thank goodness, received an appointment at the dentist to have the teeth examined.

The dentist gave me painkillers and scheduled me for an extraction two days later. My coworker drove me and picked me back up. The process was relatively painless and the teeth no longer bothered me, but the healing period required quite a bit of painkillers.

If I had not been in any pain when my two wisdom teeth came in, I think I would not have had them pulled. My top right one never bothered me and I kept it. But the pain alone and the fact that one of them was growing in crooked were reason enough for me to have them pulled.

If you have no pain and the teeth are not otherwise threatening your existing teeth (by pushing them forward, for example, if the wisdom teeth are exceptionally large or growing at an odd angle), then I would leave them alone and not have them pulled. Sometimes dentists make recommendations to make more money. I have had similar propositions made by a dentist, recommending that I have a tooth crowned that had previously had a root canal done.

While it is typically recommended to get a crown on a tooth that no longer has the root, to make it more stable, I went and got a second opinion and this dentist (a more experienced dentist with 20 years more on his back than the previous one) advised me not to get the crown because the original (natural) tooth structure is what is best for the tooth and there was absolutely nothing wrong with mine. He also said that some dental work is unnecessary and performed solely with the idea of financial gain in mind.

Oh dear.... considering my partner is about to have his wisdom teeth surgically extracted tomorrow I would say its best to have them out! Why suffer with infections and pain and difficulties any longer than you need to. Honestly I do recommend it gets done as soon as you know you need them out!

We don't need those teeth and being so far back in the mouth they can easily decay or become infected....even when you are good with brushing and everything.... and get them before you need surgery...if you can have them extracted without being cut then do it! Once they get any decay they can rot away pretty darn quickly and before you know it you're in constant pain... nope, do as they recommend and get them taken out :) A few days of pain for peace of mind.....

I really don't know. I still have mine and have had no trouble at all. I was thinking about this a month or two ago and figured I was probably in the clear.

After reading your story, I'm starting to wonder if that's not so true. What I've been told by others is that there's no point in doing anything unless they're giving you trouble. That seems like good advice to me.

After all, the surgery can include a lot of discomfort and inconvenience. If your teeth aren't guaranteed to cause trouble, why not wait until they actually start to? I guess the bottom line is that, regardless of what people say, I'm not booking a voluntary surgery when everything seems fine.

I have too many other day to day things to focus on, and I guess that's just what it comes down to. Let's hope I don't regret it.

I still have all of mine. They grew in at some point, I don't even know. They told me when I had my teeth checked during my first pregnancy that they would fit, they are fully formed and they have no idea why they never broke surface.

They are just sitting there.. in my jaw. They don't cause me a bit of pain, the dentist honestly didn't even warn me to have them taken out he seemed unconcerned. So I don't plan on spending thousands to have a rather painful extraction so I can eat from a straw for several days when from what I can tell there not hurting me a bit.

I had mine out when I was young. I don't know if it's true but when I was growing up they used to tell us that if we didn't have them pulled the roots grow around eachother and we would have to have them cut out later. So everyone had their teeth pulled.It was probably just some story the dentists had.

I don't know if it is better to have them out or not. I do know that I've had mine (all of them) for almost 48 years without a bit of trouble. I'm very lucky because I've never had a toothache of any kind in my life.

I don't really see the point if they aren't giving you trouble.

I had two of my wisdom teeth pulled but only because I had such pain in them, that it was less painful to have them pulled then to keep them. I am horrible with pain and I'm actually a big baby! One wisdom tooth never came through and the other came through and has not posed a problem.My dentist always said that as long as they didn't cause me any problems to leave them alone and that's what I've done.

:-).

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.