As dentists, we at Luxe Smile know it’s part of our mission to preserve your teeth. However, there are times when our patients in Miami might benefit from tooth extraction. We’ll do a careful evaluation of your teeth before recommending an extraction, and we strongly recommend that you get a second opinion before tooth extraction. After all, it’s not usually possible to put it back once it’s gone!
Here are some of the situations where we might recommend tooth extraction for our patients.
Wisdom Teeth Causing Problems
The teeth we extract most often are wisdom teeth. Technically known as third molars, these teeth come in later in life, though still early–when we’re in our teens or early twenties. What makes wisdom teeth problematic is that there is often not enough room for them in your mouth.
When there’s not enough room for wisdom teeth, you might experience:
- Impacted teeth that emerge partially or not at all
- Damage to the crown or root of neighboring teeth
- Crowded and crooked teeth
- Hygiene challenges and food stuck in teeth
- Gum disease
- Cavities
- Cysts and tumors
An impacted tooth is one that is hitting another tooth. This keeps your wisdom teeth from fully emerging. It can also lead to damage to the other tooth.
The pressure from the wisdom teeth trying to emerge can cause your other teeth to crowd together. This can make them crooked. Crooked teeth are harder to clean. However, the biggest hygiene challenge is often the impacted wisdom teeth themselves. These teeth create irregular, crowded spaces that are nearly impossible to clean out.
When you don’t clean your teeth properly, it can lead to cavities in your teeth and gum disease around them. Gum disease not only threatens your teeth, but it can also lead to serious health complications.
In addition, cysts and tumors, which are usually benign, can develop around impacted wisdom teeth.
We know from long experience how wisdom teeth emerge. Often our Miami dentists can tell if wisdom teeth are likely to develop problems long before the problems actually occur. When it looks like wisdom teeth are going to be problematic, we might recommend removal, even if there are currently no issues. It’s easier to extract wisdom teeth before complications arise.
Abscessed Tooth
Cavities develop in teeth because of bacteria that live in our mouths. These bacteria eat sugars and other carbohydrates, then excrete acid, which attacks the tooth, creating a hole. If this hole gets deep enough, it will penetrate the interior chamber of the tooth, where the living part is. Bacteria then infect the tooth. Once your tooth is infected, it can lead to serious, even deadly, complications.
The normal treatment for an infected tooth is root canal therapy (RCT). This can restore the tooth to good function and eliminate pain and risk related to the tooth. However, there are some times when we might choose extraction over RCT:
- A serious infection that needs to be resolved immediately
- Your weakened immune system puts you at high risk of a tooth infection
- Damage to the tooth is too extensive for RCT
- You don’t want RCT and prefer an extraction
In these cases, we’ll remove your infected tooth. Our Miami implant dentist might recommend replacing the tooth with a dental implant. Often we can place a dental implant during the same procedure as extraction.
Serious Gum Disease
Gum disease is the leading cause of tooth loss. If you have gum disease around one or more teeth, they can come loose and might need to be splinted to stay in place during treatment. Sometimes the teeth are just too far gone and will likely come out on their own if not extracted. Other times, the teeth interfere with treatment and might need to be extracted to help treatment.
Damaged Teeth
Teeth are the hardest, strongest tissues in the body. However, they’re not invulnerable, and sometimes trauma will badly damage your teeth. If the damage is confined to the visible part of the tooth–called the crown–we can usually repair it. However, if the damage extends into the tooth root–the part embedded in your jawbone–it’s usually best to extract the tooth.
A damaged tooth root can’t be sealed, and it is very susceptible to infection.
Retained Baby Teeth
Baby teeth, also known as deciduous teeth or primary teeth, normally fall out on their own (or with a little encouragement from a child eager for tooth fairy money). However, sometimes they don’t.
If your child has baby teeth that aren’t coming out, we might have to extract them to let the adult, permanent teeth come in properly.
However, sometimes there’s no adult tooth to come in. In this case, we might recommend that the baby tooth stays in place if it’s healthy. The teeth might raise cosmetic concerns because they are small, but porcelain veneers or lumineers work great to solve this problem.
Orthodontic Treatment
If your teeth are crowded and crooked, it might be due to a lack of space in your mouth for all your teeth. In order to make room for your teeth, we might recommend removing some of your teeth.
This is usually something we consider the last resort, but it might be the best way for you to get the straight, beautiful, healthy smile you want.
Do You Need a Tooth Extracted in Miami?
If you think you need a tooth extraction or if another Miami dentist has told you that you do, let us help. Our dentists will evaluate your situation and let you know whether tooth extraction is right for your situation.
We approach extractions with care and compassion and strive to make the experience as comfortable and pain-free as possible.
To talk to us about tooth extraction, please call or use our online form to request an appointment at Luxe Smiles, serving the Miami area from Palmetto Bay.
