Occasionally, our doctors may find the removal of one or more teeth from a patient’s mouth necessary. Several factors may lead to an extraction. A patient may have a toothache caused by a severe infection or by damage we cannot repair. A child’s adult teeth may start erupting before the baby teeth have fallen out, causing overcrowding. Wisdom teeth may become impacted, causing pain and other possible problems. If you need a tooth extracted, our doctors will put their years of experience to work for you, removing, and even restoring, problem teeth. To learn more about tooth extractions, or to schedule an appointment with one of the doctors, call our Docklands dental office today at (03) 9021-9487.
Reasons You May Need a Tooth Extracted
While many extractions involve the removal of severely damaged teeth, other situations may occur that necessitate the removal of one or more teeth. The most common reasons dentists perform extractions include:
- Impacted Wisdom Teeth – While some people go through life with no problems from their wisdom teeth, many need to have them extracted. This happens when the teeth become impacted, which can lead to crowding or infection. Most dentists recommend extracting the wisdom teeth while the patient is still an adolescent, to prevent future dental problems.
- Overcrowding – Occasionally, our younger patients have their adult teeth erupt before they lose all of their baby teeth, which results in overcrowding. Our doctors can extract the patient’s baby teeth, providing room for the adult teeth and preventing them from coming in misaligned.
- Orthodontics – When preparing a patient for braces, the doctor may need to remove one or more teeth to make room for others to move into place.
- Decay – Tooth decay can spread to the pulp of a tooth and cause damage beyond repair. When this happens, the doctor may recommend extraction, before the decay can spread to other teeth.
- Gum Disease – If gum disease goes untreated, it can advance to the point that it causes the bone in the jaw to deteriorate. This may cause the patient’s teeth to loosen to the point that extraction is the doctor’s only option.
- Trauma – An injury to the face may damage a tooth so badly that the doctor cannot repair it and must perform an extraction.
The Extraction Process
Extractions can range from the removal of a single tooth, to taking out all four wisdom teeth at once. The dentists may perform one of two different types of extraction.
The doctors will typically perform a simple extraction when the tooth is accessible and visible in the mouth. They can perform this type of extraction using local anesthesia and forceps.
If the tooth has broken at the gum line, or has not fully erupted, the doctors may need to perform a more complex surgical extraction. The doctors perform this type of extraction when they cannot easily see or reach a tooth in the mouth.
To perform this procedure, the doctors will typically need to make an incision in your gums. They will remove any bone covering the tooth before extraction. If the tooth has suffered severe damage, the doctors may need to break it into smaller pieces for easier removal.
Call Our Office Today
If you have a tooth that needs to come out, and would like to learn more about the extraction process, call our Docklands dental office today at (03) 9021-9487 and schedule a consultation with one of our doctors.