Oral surgery is used to treat a number of conditions including correcting impacted teeth, installing dental implants, and performing bone and gum grafts. Oral surgery can also be performed to correct irregularities in the jawbone. These surgical procedures are conducted by an oral surgeon and most are completed under local anesthesia if not fully sedated. The most frequently performed surgical procedure is the extraction of wisdom teeth.

Wisdom tooth extraction is not always necessary however most people don’t have enough space for them in their mouths. Wisdom teeth frequently erupting pointing in different directions which can cause them to become stuck, or impacted, below teeth which have emerged. Pressure and pain build up when this occurs and it can even damage the existing teeth. In the worst case scenario, it can cause tooth loss. When wisdom teeth are erupting it can also aggravate a person’s sinuses and ears. When you account for all these issues, it makes more sense to extract the wisdom teeth rather than experience a problem which could have been avoided.

Depending on the position of the wisdom teeth and their stage of development, what the surgery entails can vary. During a pre-surgery exam, the dentist will go over what to expect with each patient. When the tooth is completely erupted, wisdom tooth extraction will be a relatively simple procedure. Similar to any other extraction. However, if the tooth is impacted beneath the gums and stuck in the jawbone, an incision into the gums will be necessary in order to remove the section of the bone which covers the tooth. Normally, for this situation, instead of pulling the entire tooth in one piece it will be removed in smaller chunks. This reduces the amount of bone which has to be extracted to get the wisdom tooth out.