Wisdom Teeth Removal Described by Shelby Township Dentist
Hi. This is Dr. Antolak from thegentledentist.com. We’re in Shelby Township, Michigan. Our phone number is 586-247-3500. What am I doing holding a skull, you might be asking. Well, I wanted to just go over some anatomical considerations when somebody has some type of dentistry done. Or even implant surgery, even third molar or root canals. Surgery that happens with having wisdom teeth removed. So I use this. This is a skull. A dry skull. It’s actually a real skull. I don’t know whose this is. But it is what it is.
Right now this is in the skull. We have some things to consider. Especially in the dental world. One is, the most common area is when wisdom teeth are removed. When wisdom teeth are removed, you always have to be very concerned about the location of the nerve in relationship to the tooth itself. So what happens is, in nature, in our jaws, I’m going to turn this around a little bit here. And your action, right where this is here.
You have a nerve that comes right from your brain. And it comes into the lower jawbone here. And it comes right through this little area here called the lingula. And this is actually a little depression in an opening where the nerve that gives sensation to the lip and to the teeth. It traverses and goes inside of here. And it literally goes inside of the bone. Inside of the bone, all the way out here. And then it exits the bone. Or the nerve, most of it exits right out this little hole right here. So, what happens is, wisdom teeth and this person here, they still have their wisdom tooth is in place. And that’s this tooth way back here. So, if we can see right here, this is where the wisdom tooth is here. And this is where the nerve sits inside the bone. And, sometimes the relationship of where the root is, where this root might come down to maybe around right here, this line right here. Where that is and where the nerve comes, it can be pretty close. So the concern is when having a tooth removed, a wisdom tooth removed, and its relationship to where that nerve is. That could effect someone, and what they’re actually feeling as far as when this surgery is done. They could even have some numbness to their lip or numbness to their teeth. So we have to always be very concerned about that. On occasion, in fact, a neighbor of ours came over, and I was planning to do wisdom teeth extractions. And this young lady is only 16 years old. Well, by the time I looked at it, I had a CAT scan done on her. And I looked on my computer and with the CAT scan, and realizing that this nerve was paper thin, and it lies just on top of the nerve and it sometimes goes in through there. So in those cases we have to be very concerned about when those teeth are removed, is there going to be some numbness. With the wisdom teeth already removed there could be a potential having numbness.
The greater majority of the time, high 90% of the time, 98% of the time is just, if there’s numbness its a very temporary numbness. Maybe a tingling of the lip. That type of thing. But there is an occasion where there is some permanent numbness in that lip when the wisdom teeth are removed. So, that’s something to be concerned about. What happens is, when cases are close like that. In fact, today I saw a young man who’s 18 years old, needs to get his wisdom teeth out and they’re very close to the nerve. And I didn’t want to take any chances. So, we actually have what’s called a CAT scan is ordered. A CT scan is a 3 dimensional view. And so, it gives me the ability on a computer to actually locate where that nerve is, like I did on my neighbor, where that location where that nerve is.
Relation to where the teeth are. And to assess what the risk is of having some numbness, or even when doing an implant, how close that implant comes down and how long it has to be before it starts getting close to the nerve. So that’s one issue that we have with wisdom teeth removal and why it’s an issue.
Wisdom Teeth Removal Described by Shelby Township Dentist
So this is Dr. Antolak, if there are any questions you have about wisdom teeth, you can give us a call at the office at 586-247-3500 or visit our website at thegentledentist.com. Thank you.