Losing a tooth is never fun, but it’s sometimes necessary to do so. Teeth go bad for many different reasons. Teeth that become infected, loose, or cause other major issues, may have to be removed from your mouth. Removing this bad tooth can stop pain, eliminate infection, and reduce the risk of damage to your remaining teeth. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most common reasons why some people lose their teeth:

Advanced gum disease

The number one cause of tooth loss in the adult population is gum disease. Gum disease, or periodontitis, causes your teeth to lose their supporting bone and become loose. If left untreated, your teeth lose so much bone that they need to be removed. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for patients with severe gum disease to lose multiple teeth, sometimes even all of their teeth. Visit your dentist to get your gum disease under control before your gum disease becomes irreversible!

Infection

The second most common reason for losing your teeth is infection. Once a tooth becomes infected you either need a root canal or you have to pull the bad tooth. Infected teeth can compromise your oral health and overall well-being. Your tooth infection can spread to other teeth or it can travel through your bloodstream or sinus to the rest of your body. Don’t ever leave an infected tooth in your mouth and remove bad teeth as soon as possible.

Trauma

Sometimes you lose a tooth because it’s so badly damaged that your dentist can no longer restore the tooth. This could happen as a result of breaking a tooth during a bad accident. It can also occur when a tooth with a crown breaks off right at the gumline. Regardless of how your tooth breaks, if there’s not enough tooth structure to restore your tooth then it must be removed.

Wisdom teeth

Wisdom teeth, also called 3rd molars, are located all the way in the back of your mouth. Some people don’t have any wisdom teeth in their mouth. Others have 1, 2, 3, or 4 wisdom teeth in their mouth. Some even have more than 4 wisdom teeth. If you have wisdom teeth in your mouth, then there’s a good chance that there might not be enough room for them in your mouth and you have to remove them. Talk to your dentist to evaluate the condition of your wisdom teeth to see if you need to have yours removed or not.

Orthodontic treatment

Sometimes we remove teeth as part of orthodontic treatment. This usually is the case when you have crowded teeth and need to create additional room to straighten your smile. As a result, you may have to remove one or more permanent teeth to make room for your remaining teeth. Removing these teeth allows your dentist to correct your bite properly. It also significantly reduces the likelihood of suffering from orthodontic relapse. 

Do all wisdom teeth need to be removed?

No. Some patients need to remove their wisdom teeth, others get to keep them. It all depends on whether or not there’s enough room for your wisdom teeth in your jaws. Most wisdom teeth that are trapped in your jawbone need to be removed. We refer to this as impacted wisdom teeth. Impacted wisdom teeth can cause pain, swelling, cheek biting, even teeth crowding. The sooner your remove your impacted wisdom teeth, the less pain and complications you will suffer from.

What happens if you don’t remove your wisdom teeth?

Not all wisdom teeth need to be removed. However, if you’re having problems with your wisdom teeth, then you remove them as soon as possible. Wisdom teeth that don’t fit in your mouth can cause numerous issues. They can impact both your oral health as well as your overall well-being. Here are some complications caused by untreated wisdom teeth:

Pain and discomfort

Wisdom teeth usually cause severe pain when they start pushing their way out. This starts happening when you’re in your late teens or early twenties. If there isn’t enough room for your wisdom teeth to erupt, they cause repeated episodes of pain and swelling. The sooner you address these problematic wisdom teeth, the less you will suffer!

Teeth crowding

As your wisdom teeth push their way out, they cause other teeth to move as well. This leads to teeth crowing if there isn’t enough room to accommodate your wisdom teeth in your jaws. As a result, your other teeth start to shift and they become crooked. Removing your wisdom teeth early in life helps prevent these types of teeth crowding situations.

Head and neck pain

Impacted wisdom teeth can also be responsible for TMJ pain, headaches, and sinus-related complications. Removing your wisdom teeth can relieve the excessive pressure from your jaw joints and sinuses. This may reduce or eliminate your head and neck related complications.

Damage to neighboring teeth

If your wisdom tooth is sitting at a bad angle it can create a hole on the adjacent tooth. This eventually causes a cavity on the neighboring tooth, which is your 2nd molar. If left untreated, your 2nd molar becomes infected. This means that you could end up losing both your wisdom tooth and your 2nd molar as a result of neglecting your impacted wisdom tooth!

Bone grafting following tooth extraction

Bone graft is applied after removing a tooth to fill in the tooth extraction socket. Once you remove a tooth you’re left with a large empty extraction socket. This extraction socket needs to fill up with bone tissue in order to heal properly. Adding bone graft assists your body with the post-extraction healing process. Here are some other benefits of adding bone graft to your tooth extraction site:

More predictable healing

Adding bone graft to a tooth extraction site significantly improves the healing process. Extracted teeth leave a large hole in your jaws. Bone graft fills this void and assists your body with the healing process. This is because bone graft creates a scaffold for better infiltration of blood cells. This causes your tooth extraction socket to heal faster and more predictably.

Reduced complications

Placing a bone graft also reduces your chances of developing a dry socket. Dry socket occurs whenever your body fails to deposit enough bone particles into a tooth extraction site. Unfortunately, dry sockets are very painful. Plus, they typically take a few weeks before they resolve themselves. Adding bone grafting material at the time of surgery assists your body in generating more bone. This significantly reduces your chances of developing a painful dry socket after oral surgery.

Superior jawbone preservation

If you’re planning on replacing your missing tooth with a dental implant then placing a bone graft is a must. Bone grafts preserve your tooth extraction socket for future implant placement. Without a bone graft, your jawbone might collapse and you won’t have enough bone to place a dental implant. 

How do I remove my tooth?

Removing bad teeth goes far beyond eliminating pain and discomfort. Having infected teeth in your mouth can compromise your overall health. Infected teeth can be responsible for unexplained headaches, recurring sinus infections, digestive issues, and many other serious medical problems. Since not all dental infections are painful, you may not even be aware that there’s an infection in your mouth. Be sure to visit your dentist if you suspect that you have an infected tooth or any other reason that you may need a tooth pulled.

If you currently don’t have a dentist, you can use our dentist Search Engine to find a great dentist. Search nearby dentists and look for one who offers tooth extraction as a service. You can look through the dentist’s profile to learn more about your future dentist. Read their reviews, view their treatment photos, book your appointment online, and even shop for deals on their Even28 Online Store. Now let’s find a great dentist so that you don’t have to postpone essential dental work any longer. And before we forget, good luck with your tooth extraction!

FIND A DENTIST NEAR YOU