Apr
12
Oral Care
IMPACTED TOOTH
Simply put, impacted teeth are teeth that are growing incorrectly from underneath the gums. More technically, an impacted tooth is a tooth that has not successfully grown into its recommended or assigned position. This means that teeth grow the wrong way around, either diagonally (to which case they start hitting the base of the teeth beside them), horizontally, or vertically (cropping up closer to the walls of the mouth, making it difficult of the person to chew or close their mouths). This happens because the arch of your mouth does not leave enough room for the erupting third molars.
As in the case of wisdom teeth, dentists recommend removing the third molars if they have revealed themselves to be problematic, or if they are impacted wisdom teeth. The pain, unfortunately, goes way beyond a simple toothache. Aberrant tooth growth can cause the gums to swell, making it prone to infections that could potentially lead to gum disease.
There are about four kinds of impacted teeth: distal, vertical, mesial or angular, and horizontal.
Distal impaction is where the tooth is slanted towards the throat, while mesial or angular impaction is where the tooth is slanted forward towards the mouth’s front. Teeth growing sideways fall under horizontal impaction, while a vertical impaction has the tooth developing upward and too closely to the base of the tooth near it.
For these cases, it is recommended that you visit the dentist so that he or she can have the offending tooth extracted.