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An impacted tooth is a tooth which has been hindered from erupting above the gum.
Wisdom teeth are generally molars located at the back of the mouth for the breakdown of tougher foods. When they don’t find a way to erupt above the gums, they stay beneath them and become impacted wisdom teeth.
In case you were wondering how teeth get impacted, we’ve got it all covered for you. Impacted teeth can stem from a few set of factors such as:
Delayed Baby Teeth Loss
Delayed shedding of baby teeth, most especially the canines, can cause a delay in growth of adult teeth. This delay in shed is usually caused by crowding, which in turn leads to impacted teeth.
Trauma
When the tooth undergoes trauma such as an accident or harsh impact, teeth growth can be delayed. This delay can turn the teeth into impacted teeth.
Overcrowding
Impacted teeth can occur in such situations when the mouth and jaw bone are already saturated with teeth. This situation leaves no room for underlying teeth to pop up, thus keeping them beneath and impacted.
Oversize
When developing teeth are bigger than available eruption space, chances of impaction are sky high. The lack of space prevents these teeth from erupting, thus condemning them beneath the gums.
Small Jawbones
Some people just happen to have small jawbones, which don’t give enough space for all teeth to blossom. This causes some teeth to develop and stay beneath the gums, thus, impacted teeth.
Growth Directions
In most cases of impacted teeth, the latter barely grows straight up. Some grow horizontally, some grow in such thwarted directions that they are doomed to be impacted.
Genetics
Sometimes, you’ll just have to blame iron genetics In most cases, when a parent suffers from impacted teeth, their offspring are very likely to suffer from it too.
Although most impacted teeth stay lowkey for a while, here are a few symptoms to look out for when they start manifesting:
Bad Breath
Your breath will eventually begin to stink due to the crowding of impacted teeth, which fosters bacterial growth.
Pain when Chewing
As your impacted tooth actively searches for space for eruption, it might actually cause hurtful inflammations. It could equally end up erupting in an area quite uncomfortable for mastication, causing pain when chewing.
Pain when Opening or Closing the Mouth
Having an impacted tooth will cause the jawbone to become tender, red and swollen. These effects will cause pain in affected areas each time you open or close your mouth.
Tooth Gap
You may equally experience a gap between erupted and impacted teeth, as the horizontally growing impacted tooth failed to fill in its space.
Bad Taste
We’re not talking of preference when we say impacted teeth will give you bad taste. The inflammations, accumulation of bacteria and redness will tend to create discharges such as pus and blood. These discharges taste not sweet at all, but you will have to deal with them till treatment.
There exist two main ways to go about treating impacted teeth. You could either go for a surgical procedure, or err on the side of orthodontic treatments. The paragraphs below expatiate on these treatment options, so you have a bigger picture of them.
Surgical Treatment Options:
Extraction
For the molars or back teeth, extraction might be a solution if the jawbone lacks space for its accommodation.
Open Eruption
With this procedure, the dentist cuts open the gum tissue around the impacted tooth to expose it and monitor its growth. This is mostly done with molars and premolars, and it permits them to erupt to the top.
Closed Eruption
Mostly practiced for front teeth, this entails cutting and exposing the implanted tooth, placing support, and replacing the gum tissue.
Orthodontics Treatment Options:
Braces
For serious cases of impacted teeth, braces come in pretty handy. This method makes use of brackets, wires and the pressure they exert, to correct teeth alignment.
Clear Aligners
Unlike braces, aligners are used for less serious cases of impacted teeth. They are quite comfortable, and are a more discreet alternative to braces.
Retainers
After braces correct your teeth, you may be given retainers to keep them aligned and in place.
Before deciding if removal is necessary for your impacted teeth or not, your dentist got some job to do. For this reason, we strongly advise you to book a free consultation with our dental specialists today. Through this, they will run a couple x-rays and assessments to have better knowledge of your oral health state. Once done, they will breakdown your oral health to you in detail, what can be done to better it, and price. Once again, we do this all for free, so book right away!
FAQ
No pain is inflicted during the procedure. However, in some cases, local anaesthesia may be applied to avoid the possibility of pain. After the first session, temporary laminates are attached in order to protect the teeth until the permanent veneers attachment. Therefore, the patient, not to mention that the issue of tooth sensitivity is avoided, experiences no esthetic problem.
• People with lower jaw extending forward
• People with malocclusion
• People with insufficient gums
• Patients with advanced fluorosis (it will cause an advanced discolouration. Additionally, it prevents a strong attachment of the laminate).
• People with bruxism and other harmful habits should not have laminate veneers or should firstly deal with these problems.
To apply acrown, all around the tooth 2 mm of enamel have to be removed. In porcelain laminate veneers, only front 0.3-1 mm is enough to attach them.
Due to a large number of bacteria living in the oral cavity, all restoration procedures bring an increased risk of tooth decay. You can increase the lifespan of your laminates and avoid complications by taking care of your oral hygiene and keeping your teeth and veneers possibly clean. In order to achieve that, do not neglect your routine oral care (toothpaste, toothbrush, dental floss, and interdental brush) and visits to your dentist’s office.
During the first visit to the doctor’s office measurements are taken from the patient’s mouth. Using the acquired tooth model a mock-up model is prepared in the laboratory using a special material. In this way, doctor and patient, can make changes according to their wishes and decide how the final aesthetic effect should look like.
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