Find out when a tooth just needs to come out.
While the goal of good oral health is to always maintain your own natural teeth, there are certain instances where it’s actually better if our Lynchburg, VA, dentist Dr. Robert Bunn performs a tooth extraction rather than leaves the tooth. If your dentist has told you that you need to have a tooth extracted, you may have questions. Here are the most common reasons to have a permanent tooth removed,
Injury
Traumatic injuries to the face can often lead to serious damage for your teeth. Our Lynchburg, VA, dental team has performed tooth extractions on severely damaged teeth due to car accidents or sports-related injuries. While knocked-out teeth can often be saved when treated within an hour of the injury, in some instances the tooth is not salvageable, and we will need to remove and replace it.
Impacted Wisdom Teeth
This is one of the most common reasons for a tooth extraction. These third and final set of molars typically erupt during your teen years or early 20s. Unfortunately, most jaws cannot accommodate this extra set of teeth, which means that they are often impacted (where the teeth don’t fully erupt through the gums). Impacted wisdom teeth can damage neighboring teeth and lead to infection and other problems, so it’s important for our dental team to remove these teeth as soon as possible.
Decay
If you don’t get a cavity taken care of when you should, then decay will continue to spread deeper into the tooth until it infects the tooth’s nerve (also known as the dental pulp). In this case a root canal can often be performed to remove the damaged nerve; however, if the tooth doesn’t respond to a root canal or if the infection continues to spread into the roots of the teeth and the jaw, then the only option is to extract the tooth to get rid of the decay and infection.
Crowding
Do you have teeth that severely overlap one another? If you’re about to get braces to correct this problem, we understand just how important it is to achieve fast, effective results. If you have severe crowding, then your dentist may recommend removing one or more teeth in order to free up space in your mouth for teeth to shift around more efficiently. This can also speed up the length of your orthodontic treatment.
If you have questions about upcoming tooth extraction or you want to talk with our Lynchburg, VA, dentist to see whether you should have your wisdom teeth removed, call Dental-Doctors of Lynchburg today at (434) 385-7718.