Our Dental Blog

The Benefits of a Dental Extraction

December 30, 2019

We always strive to help our patients in Kansas City, MO, and surrounding communities enjoy full and healthy smiles. Treatments can help prevent issues that lead to missing teeth, avoiding the onset of gum disease and other issues. However, sometimes protecting your oral health actually means extracting a tooth! Learn how removing your wisdom teeth could help ensure you enjoy an even and healthy smile for years to come.

dentist holding teeth in hand

Wisdom Teeth and More

When do we look toward tooth removal to protect your smile’s health and beauty? When is a restoration simply not enough? Well, should a tooth develop an extreme case of decay or infection, one in which treatment wasn’t administered in a timely manner, removing the tooth could be necessary to prevent the spread of infection to surrounding teeth or into the jawbone itself. Severe damage could also require extraction. If you have misalignment, in some cases we may need to remove a tooth in order to make room to reposition the others properly. However, the most common reason is to prevent the complications of wisdom tooth eruption. As people enter their late teens and early 20s, the risk of up to four new molar erupting in the rear of the mouth increases. For some, this could mean all four becoming impacted, which means partially erupted, leading to misalignment, damaged teeth, infection, and other complications. By removing these teeth before the eruption process starts, we can preserve your smile’s current health and beauty!

Oral Surgery and Recovery

If you have a child entering his or her late teens or adulthood, be sure to schedule a checkup or have them do so to allow us to assess the risk posed by wisdom teeth. Otherwise, always let us know if you experience pain in one or more of your teeth, suffer from severe misalignment, or if you have sustained damage. If we find a tooth will need removal, we will administer a anesthetic to the extraction site and then discuss sedation options to ensure patients feel comfortable and relaxed throughout the proceedings. We gently rock the tooth free with forceps, or for those with wisdom teeth, we open the area of the gums above the tooth. After removal, we suture the extraction site closed and a friend or family member can bring you home, as sedation takes time to wear off. We provide detailed aftercare instructions to help facilitate a fast and complication-free healing process!

Do You Need an Extraction?

We can offer an extraction to help you start a new year with a healthier smile. To learn more about our restorative and general treatment options, then please schedule a consultation by calling Cosmetic & Implant Dentistry of Kansas City, MO, today at 816-427-4018. We’re here to help residents in our community enjoy optimal oral health and beautiful, bright smiles.