I only have two wisdom teeth, both on my left side. Both are impacted. I’m getting the top one out because it is infected. The dentist gave me a few choices. He said that the bottom tooth is near a nerve. I can just take out the top one and leave the bottom as is until it becomes a problem. I can remove them both despite the bottom one being near the nerve. Or, I can remove the top one and just the crown of the bottom one, leaving the root. But, if it gets infected, I’ll have to go back and remove the rest. Do you have a recommendation? I’m almost paralyzed about this decision.
Emily K.
Dear Emily,
I’m glad you wrote. It’s hard when dentists do this to patients—leaving them to make the decisions without any real guidance. I don’t really recommend you leaving the tooth in place until it becomes a problem. You didn’t mention your age, but the older you get, the greater the risk of complications when it comes to removing wisdom teeth. The ideal time to do that is late teens to early twenties. After that your risk increases, doubling about every five years.
Because of that, I think you should remove it. What you don’t want to do is leave it and then end up with an infection and the need for emergency dental care when you have less control of the situation.
While nerve damage is a risk, it’s not extraordinarily high. With x-rays and careful work during the surgery there shouldn’t be a problem, though you can never completely get rid of the risk. While leaving the root is a viable option, I do not recommend leaving the whole root. Instead, just have him leave the root tip. That way the body won’t try to reject it.
The key will be allowing the dentist doing the procedure to decide during the surgery. It could be things are much easier than he first anticipated and it is very easy to remove the entire root with no risk at all. Or, he or she may get in there and realize that it would be safer to leave the root tip.
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