Should You Consider Having Your Teeth Extracted before Christmas?

If you have crowded teeth, teeth affected by disease or trauma and extraction will become necessary. With Christmas arriving just after a month, you may wonder whether you should complete the extraction before the festival. The decision is entirely at your discretion and the condition of the teeth that need to be extracted. You can meet the dentist near you to understand the procedure and also to collect some before extraction tips.

Dentists routinely have a goal to preserve natural teeth and also to keep them healthy for as long as possible. However, sometimes there could be many reasons why the teeth should be extracted as mentioned earlier. You could be suffering from severe decay or trauma, an impacted wisdom tooth may be remaining in your mouth or perhaps your child needs to undergo orthodontic treatment and therefore an extraction is necessary to remove overcrowding.

Whatever may be the reason, extracting the tooth is just a routine procedure. The dentist will consider the location of the tooth as well as its roots before the extraction. Front teeth will be easier to remove because it has a single root. Molars, on the other hand, have multiple roots that may not be as easy to remove as the front tooth. The difficulties are compounded if the molar is a wisdom tooth that is impacted and below the surface of the gums surrounded by gum tissue and bones. The dentist must consider all factors before recommending an extraction.

The Main Reasons for Tooth Extraction

The reasons for extracting a tooth can be different and dentists are always happy to discuss the pros and cons of any dental treatment with you. The following cases can be considered as primary for tooth extraction.

Disease or Trauma — An attempt will be made to preserve the tooth in several ways in both these situations. The damaged tooth may require root canal treatment, a full-coverage crown or both. At times these methods are insufficient to keep the tooth functioning. In such cases, the better option would be to remove the tooth to be replaced with a dental implant.

Orthodontic Treatment — Teeth sometimes need to be removed because there are too many of them causing a situation known as crowding. The teeth cannot be aligned properly unless adequate spaces created by the extraction of one or more teeth.

Impacted Wisdom Teeth — When impacted wisdom teeth are removed early damage to the neighboring healthy teeth, gum, bone, nerves and blood vessels can be prevented. Wisdom teeth that are impacted and are in a bad position also need to be extracted before the roots are fully formed.

Baby Teeth — baby teeth can sometimes be out of position and not in the right sequence causing the permanent teeth to erupt abnormally. Extraction of the baby teeth becomes necessary to prevent the need for orthodontic treatment in later stages.

Understanding the Process of the Extraction

If you have been recommended tooth extraction you should understand what you can do while the process is undergoing. A radiographic x-ray examination to assess the position of the tooth roots, as well as the condition of the surrounding bone, will be a requirement. Dentists will take a thorough medical and drug history to ensure the patient is healthy to undergo the procedure. Options for different types of anesthesia will also be discussed with the patient by the dentists.

Local anesthesia is generally sufficient for tooth extraction because it can numb the teeth to be extracted along with the surrounding gum and bone tissues. Additional sedatives may also be provided in the form of oral sedatives, nitrous oxide, and intravenous sedation.

The dentist will be careful not to damage the surrounding bone while extracting the teeth. They may also want to put a tiny amount of bone grafting processed in a laboratory to preserve the bone volume on occasions. This is important, especially if after the extraction an implant is going to be inserted.

What after the Tooth Extraction

The dentist will provide you some after procedure dental tips which you will be required to follow stringently. Immediately after the extraction, the socket will be covered by a sterile gauze for approximately 10 to 20 minutes for controlling the bleeding. Experiencing mild to moderate post-operative discomfort is common along with swelling. Taking over-the-counter drugs like ibuprofen and aspirin may be suggested. You should be using ice packs on the outside of the jaw and have softer foods during the recovery period.

You will be back to normal within a few days after the extraction but in the meanwhile, if you experience any discomfort you should be contacting the dentist who performed the procedure to understand if everything is fine.