 Hello everybody, Andrew Maeski here with Dental L. So a common question that I have is do I need or does my son or daughter need to get their wisdom teeth taken out? So there is a simple answer to this, but I'm going to explain it a little bit. Why or why not? So back in the day, everybody would just simply have them out. We would say, well, the wisdom teeth are coming in, it's time to get them out, plain and simple. I've been doing this now for about 15 years, and that's what we did. They will likely take an x-ray that goes around the head called a panoramic x-ray, so that you can see all of the teeth from here to here. In fact, let me show you guys what that looks like. I'm going to pause this and just quickly pull that up. Hey, you guys, sorry about that. So on my screen right now is this is a panoramic x-ray. So see how this is so helpful because we would not be able to see the wisdom teeth otherwise, because they can be pretty far back. So in this x-ray here, this is a wisdom tooth. This is a wisdom tooth. This one over here is a wisdom tooth, and of course up here too. So the simple answer is no, not everybody has to get their wisdom tooth taken out, but it's a matter of do you have enough room for them? Because even if you look at this tooth here, you see how it's pushing into this tooth. That's not a good thing. Not only because it can cause a lot more crowding than you probably want, but it can also cause a cavity in this tooth that doesn't have to be there. So if it does cause a cavity, they would have to take that high-speed handbees and drill in between right here to try to go underneath the gum to fix a cavity here and then likely on the wisdom tooth. Now I know it's hard for you guys to tell, but the gum line is kind of here, okay? So the wisdom teeth on the bottom are actually not quite through the mouth. Looks like it's partially erupted to me, so you can probably see a little bit, but when they're partially erupted, that can be tricky too because they will try to go up and down. Wisdom teeth have minds of their own. They will try to go up and down, up and down, and that causes pain. That's why often we do tell people that they should have the wisdom teeth taken out sooner rather than later. Usually age 17 to 21, it could even be sooner if the teeth come in quicker, but that's because we don't want you to be in pain and the wisdom teeth do have a tendency to cause pain. Not always, not all the time, but if they do cause you pain, it can happen quickly and then we might say, well, we can't get you in for another month, so you have to live with this pain for a month. That sounds horrible, right? But I wanna bring your attention up to the top teeth now. So these are actually through the gum line. So it looks like this person does have enough room for those top teeth. So technically, you would only need to get, in my opinion, the ones on the bottom taken out because they are pushing in too much. This one's not pushing in, but there's just not enough room for it. So it can go up and down, it can cause pain. But another thing that I like to mention is if you are being put to sleep to have the wisdom teeth taken out, it makes sense, you guys, to have all four of them taken out, even if two of them might not need to be taken out. And I'll tell you why, because you don't need the wisdom teeth for anything. And what I see happen so often is, I'll see a patient who let's just say had two of them taken out on the bottom, but five years later, the ones on their top are pretty much starting to hurt them. And we say, okay, I know you were put to sleep before, but we kinda have to do it again because these teeth are complicated, we have to be careful. So we're going to put you to sleep again, have those taken out now. It makes sense to just have them all out at the same time if you are having them out and being put to sleep so that you can just have them all out at the same time. You only need to be put to sleep once. And hopefully you have them taken out at that age where you're covered by your parents' insurance, okay? So that's kind of a nice thing to think about too, is at that age, you might not have kids, you might not have other things to think about. Hopefully you can take a day or two off from work or school in that case. But if you're 35, having the wisdom teeth taken out, I see a lot of the issues are like, well, my boss won't let me take time off work, I'll get in a lot of trouble. So I'm gonna have to do it on a Friday, like after work. So at least I have the weekend to recover, okay? Well, that makes sense. But that's just a lot that you have to think about, right? And what if you need more time off? And you just might not be able to take that time off because more things are just happening and it costs more money the later you have them taken out. So as a teenager, as a young adult, things cost less. Plus, you will heal up a lot quicker, okay? So I'm just gonna stop sharing my screen for a moment here. Does that make sense to everybody? If you guys have any questions, let me know. So the simple answer is no, not everybody has to have them taken out. But I like to look at that panoramic x-ray that I did show you to see where the wisdom teeth are because I might say to you, well, they're all underneath the gum line. They're not even close to coming up. You might be okay to leave them alone. Or I might say, okay, they're trying to come through. They're going to likely cause you pain soon. I hate to say that, but you might as well have them out now so that doesn't happen. Or we could wait, leave them alone, and then you tell me when you're in pain and then you take them out, that sounds horrible, right? But it does depend on that x-ray. So if you guys have questions, let me know. I do hope this helped, but things are definitely changing. You don't have to have the wisdom teeth taken out now. So thank you guys so much for watching. Any questions, let me know and I will see you in the next one.