Your last teeth

If you have been getting pain at the back of your teeth and you are in your late teens or older, then it could be your wisdom teeth trying to come through.

Your wisdom teeth are the last teeth to arrive in your mouth. They are the third and last set of molars and generally don’t show up until you are around 20 and know a bit about life. That’s why we call them wisdom teeth in Harley Street.

There can be quite a few things that can go wrong when your wisdom teeth come through and this can require intervention from your dentist at Harley Street Dental Clinic. Let’s take a look at a few of them:

Misalignment

If your teeth come through wonky in some way, we may have to remove them. They may even try to come through into the roots of the adjacent tooth.

Impaction

This is when the wisdom tooth either doesn’t come through at all, or, only partly erupts. There can still be a flap of gum over the tooth and food can get under it and it can become infected. The best thing to do is to remove the tooth.

Symptoms to watch out for

Symptoms associated with wisdom tooth problems include:

• Bad breath and taste in the mouth
• Pain and difficulty opening the mouth
• Ear ache
• Pain, swelling, swollen gums or ulcers
• Swollen glands.

Even if your wisdom teeth make it through your gums fairly uneventfully, there’s no guarantee there won’t be problems later. This is because wisdom teeth are right at the back of the mouth and they can be difficult to clean.

Throughout your life, you will need to keep an eye out for:

• Infection of the gum around the tooth, known as pericoronitis. This can be severe, causing pain and swelling and we often have to remove the tooth;
• Tooth decay, either in the wisdom tooth or the one in front. This may even lead to an abscess if the decay gets into the nerve;
• Cysts around the tooth. All teeth are in a sack, and this can expand like a balloon to create a cyst. This isn’t very common, fortunately.