ORAL
SURGERY &
WISDOM  
TEETH  

DR. STEVEN T. CURRY
                       DENTAL OFFICE
We routinely offer      
Sedation services to    
allow comfortable,     
calm and relaxed       
surgeries  for our        
patients
                              ORAL SURGERY
We provide oral surgery services for our patients, ranging
from routine forceps extractions to surgical extractions.  We
also remove impacted wisdom teeth.  As a general rule, teeth
with more than one root or teeth with long roots surrounded
by dense bone are best removed surgically.  This approach
allows us to provide gentler, more comfortable treatment and
results in quicker, better healing for our patients.  When more
than one tooth is removed, we reshape and recontour the area
to help it heal better.  This alveoloplasty produces a smoother
and more stable base for a partial or denture.  Sometimes, a
patient needing dentures has extra gum tissue or bony places
in their mouths which might cause pain or make a denture
unstable.  We do pre-prosthetic corrections for these problems.
                            WISDOM TEETH
Wisdom teeth start coming in when we are in our late teens to
early 20's.  Some people have no problem with them; but most
of us simply don't have enough room for a third set of molars.  
When wisdom teeth start emerging there is usually pain,
swelling, pressure; often accompanied by an "achy feeling" of
the jaw that travels up into the ear.  This, along with gum
redness/swelling, can make it hard to brush teeth properly or
chew food on the side that hurts. If they are locked in and
can't grow normally, these impacted  teeth can exert pressure
on the roots of the teeth next to them, causing damage.  
Often, they have cysts around their roots which may cause
bone loss around back teeth and be a source of infection.  This
can result in the loss of better, more useful molars.  As a
general rule, most wisdom teeth should be removed.
Why Do We Have   
 Wisdom Teeth?

Wisdom teeth were a
good thing 1000 years
ago when men ate
unwashed food that
was coarse and sandy.
The grit in the diet of
that time acted like
natural sandpaper,
wearing down all the
teeth to create large
gaps between them.  If
teeth wore down, men
couldn't survive:  our
diets of processed food
hadn't been invented,
yet.  For survival
purposes, having an
extra set of molars
meant people could
chew food & live an
extra 10-15 years.