Getting the wisdom teeth extracted is a process that nearly everyone needs to go through at the end of adolescence. But have you ever wondered why so many of us need to have these teeth pulled? At The Center for Oral Surgery of Las Vegas, we’re proud to offer a wide range of oral surgery procedures to patients throughout greater Las Vegas, including wisdom teeth extraction. So we’d like to shed a little light on why extracting the wisdom teeth is so important.
The wisdom teeth, also called the third molars, are a final set of teeth that grow in later than more of the permanent teeth, finally coming in around the age of 18-20. Most people have wisdom teeth, so why do they have to be removed?
The answer comes down to evolutionary biology. As anatomically modern humans, our mouths have evolved to be smaller than those of our evolutionary predecessors: because we cook our food and farm, we don’t need large, tough teeth to break down foods in the way earlier human subspecies did. However, for most of us, the evolution of our teeth hasn’t quite caught up. Accordingly, we naturally grow in more teeth than our mouth actually has room for. This causes the teeth to grow in crooked, and in many cases, the wisdom teeth become impacted and can’t come in straight at all.
To prevent the orthodontic problems that this causes, most people need to have their wisdom teeth removed entirely. This prevents the wisdom teeth from becoming impacted and infected, and it also prevents them from pushing the other teeth out of healthy alignment and causing orthodontic issues.
Wisdom teeth extraction is a normal procedure, and thankfully, it’s also a relatively minor and routine one. And if it’s time for you to get your wisdom teeth out, we can help! Contact us today to learn more about our oral surgery center and schedule a consultation for wisdom teeth extraction in Las Vegas. We can’t wait to hear from you, and we look forward to helping you achieve a healthy smile!