Nothing can look, feel or function exactly like your natural teeth. Therefore, your dentist will always endeavour to fix your infected, broken or damaged tooth before considering extracting it.
Sometimes, however, a dentist has no choice but to extract a tooth because it can’t be simply saved. Other times, you may need a procedure that necessitates pulling out a tooth. Here are five times when your dentist may recommend pulling out your tooth:
1. Traumatic Dental Injuries
A dentist can help save your cracked or fractured tooth. However, severely injured split choppers may need pulling out.
Your dentist may also recommend extraction if the crack on your tooth extends below your gum line. Such a tooth may not be treatable and therefore can’t be saved. That may happen if you delay visiting a dentist after cracking a tooth.
2. Third Molar Complications
Impacted wisdom teeth don’t have sufficient room in the mouth to emerge or develop normally. Such third molars can cause pain and damage to adjacent teeth. Impacted wisdom teeth are also difficult to clean, making them prone to decay and gum disease.
Wisdom tooth extraction in Singapore is recommended for impacted third molars that cause pain, infection or other oral health problems. To avert potential future issues, your dentist may also recommend removal of an impacted tooth that’s not currently causing symptoms.
3. Your Mouth is Crowded, and You Need Braces
Do you have crowded and poorly aligned teeth? Dental braces can help improve your smile. However, teeth that are too big for the mouth can interfere with teeth alignment.
Your dentist may then need to extract some of your teeth to prepare your mouth for braces. Such an extraction will improve the chances of successful orthodontic treatment.
4. Dental Infection
Root canal therapy can repair and save a tooth that has damaged, infected or even dead pulp. If the infected tooth is still viable, your dentist will remove its pulp to stop the pain and the infection. The dentist will then clean, disinfect, fill and seal the area.
But sometimes, the infection is so bad that a root canal and antibiotics can’t cure it. Such a tooth needs removal to avert the spread of the infection.
Extraction may also be an option if the infection has damaged much of your tooth or destroyed the tissue and bone that surround it. That may happen, for example, when gum disease affects tissue and bone, causing the loosening of teeth.
5. Risk of Infection
People with a compromised immune system may require extraction of any tooth with the risk of infection. This minimises the chance of the infection spreading from the mouth to other organs.
Things that may adversely affect your immunity include having an organ transplant or receiving chemotherapy.
Your adult pearly whites are designed to last a lifetime. However, various good reasons may prompt your dentist to recommend pulling out one or more of your teeth. Common reasons for tooth extraction involve infection or the risk of it or teeth that’s too severely damaged to be saved.
