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Comment by dan-robertson | Hacker News Reader

How common is it to need wisdom teeth removed these days? Eg mine came up slowly but having them out wasn’t even something I discussed with my dentist

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I would hazard a guess that you and GP live in different countries. In Europe it is generally rare to remove wisdom teeth after the mid 20s, as if they haven't caused acute problems while erupting then they probably won't.

In the US it is a routine procedure to remove wisdom teeth that would be considered healthy and non-problematic elsewhere, even in older adults.

Source: my mother is dentist, and I've known multiple people move to the US and suddenly as a middle aged adult need their wisdom teeth removed.

That's an interesting parallel to circumcision, which is also an unnecessary routine procedure in the US, but generally only done for acute medial reasons in Europe (ignoring Muslims who do it for religious reasons presumably in both).

Dentists have been telling me to remove my wisdom teeth for about 15 ~ 20 years so far and I keep not seeing a reason to

The best reason is that Beechcraft Bonanza your dentist wants isn’t going to pay for itself.

For some reason Americans are more enthusiastic about unnecessary medical interventions. The pediatric ear tube surgery is another example.

If you're going to a normal dentist in USA then they don't even do wisdom teeth, that's done by an oral surgeon.

Are there no referral fees for such things? I always assumed that there must be.

That depends. US dentists are definitely licensed to do extractions, but you’re right it often gets referred to an oral surgeon, especially in bigger cities.

Mine were removed when I was in the 9th or 10th grade. They were impacted and had to be cut out in pieces. It was an outpatient procedure but I was under anesthesia.

I don't remember having any particular pain or anything beforehand, I was just told I was getting them out. There was no discussion about whether I wanted to do that or not. I had already had braces at that point, and they were causing my teeth to shift again, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Feeling back there with my tongue now, I think there's room for another tooth on each upper side, but there is no room for more on the lower jaw. This makes sense with what I remember being told, that they were 'growing in sideways'. In a scenario like this I wonder if they are concerned about being able to keep those very back teeth clean, in addition to the cosmetic issue with movement of other teeth.

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