Teen Dies During Wisdom Tooth Surgery

That’s terrible about that girl. I can’t see how she could die from hypoxia if they had a simple pulse-ox on her finger. I don’t remember if they had one on me when I got my wisdom teeth yanked, but it seems like these days that is the first thing they put on you in the hospital.

I had one wisdom tooth come in at an angle which caused me to bite my cheek all the damn time. The surgeon ended up yanking two, and then having to dissect the other two and cut them into pieces to get them out. He opened a hole to my sinuses on the upper right, which caused my sinuses to drain through my mouth until everything closed up. On one of the bottom sockets where he did a dissection, he badly bruised me directly on the nerve. My whole jaw was yellow and purple for weeks.

On the upside the dude gave me vicodin refills for six months. Who needs hush-money when you can get hush-narcotics?

Seems like most people’s dentists are pretty trigger-happy, from what I hear.

My doc is totally chill. The enamel on a couple of my molars is all but gone, which means my options are basically ‘root canal’ or ‘wait until it gets worse then root canal’.

My Doc has been pushing the ‘ride the lightning’ approach, bless his heart.

I got my wisdom teeth out before my senior year of high-school and was eating hard foods within the week. They weren’t giving me any problems prior to the surgery, but it was just highly advised by my orthodontist. All in all everything went very well for me.

Just my two cents.

Mine broke when I clenched my teeth doing squats. Then they got infected and I became very sick. The surgeon that removed them was an old hand at it and popped them out in less time than it took for the local to take effect, probably 15 seconds for each tooth, with no trauma to the surrounding gums.

I have noticed that there have been a heck of a lot of advertisements in the past couple of years for sedation dentistry. Unfortunately, that brings odds into play. With an increase in procedures, there is going to be an increase in complications. A friend of mine is an anesthesiologist and he says “The human heart can be tricky. It will keep going for a long time, but once it stops, it can be a real pain in the ass to get going again.”.

[quote]Fuzzyapple wrote:
I’m not dentist.[/quote]

Lol… I read that in Hulk voice.

General anesthetic seems like overkill for wisdom teeth removal… When I had mine done, which were by no means easy( had to be “split” in bits- over 2 hours of work) , I was simply under a local anesthetic with no other sort of painkillers even. Drove myself home after the surgery.

Everyone does not need their third molars out.

People who do:
Those with impacted molars that are turned sideways and encroaching on the second molar
Those who have PARTIALLY impacted molars where half of the molar is in the oral cavity but the patient can’t clean it which will lead to decay/infection
Those who don’t have the oral hygiene or technique to reach far enough to keep those teeth clean.
Those forming a cyst around their third impacted molars.

I still have my third molars but they came in straight. I am fully aware that deep decay would mean they would need to come out.

yes, most doctors will pause at treatment of this the older the patient is. This is largely because of the increased density of bone as one gets over 30 years of age.

[quote]tmay11 wrote:
General anesthetic seems like overkill for wisdom teeth removal… When I had mine done, which were by no means easy( had to be “split” in bits- over 2 hours of work) , I was simply under a local anesthetic with no other sort of painkillers even. Drove myself home after the surgery. [/quote]

Everyone doesn’t deal with procedures the same way you do.

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]tmay11 wrote:
General anesthetic seems like overkill for wisdom teeth removal… When I had mine done, which were by no means easy( had to be “split” in bits- over 2 hours of work) , I was simply under a local anesthetic with no other sort of painkillers even. Drove myself home after the surgery. [/quote]

Everyone doesn’t deal with procedures the same way you do.[/quote]

X, if you came at me with a dental drill and a pair of pliers, I would request the general, as well.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Everyone does not need their third molars out.

People who do:
Those with impacted molars that are turned sideways and encroaching on the second molar
Those who have PARTIALLY impacted molars where half of the molar is in the oral cavity but the patient can’t clean it which will lead to decay/infection
Those who don’t have the oral hygiene or technique to reach far enough to keep those teeth clean.
Those forming a cyst around their third impacted molars.

I still have my third molars but they came in straight. I am fully aware that deep decay would mean they would need to come out.

yes, most doctors will pause at treatment of this the older the patient is. This is largely because of the increased density of bone as one gets over 30 years of age.[/quote]

What if the sideways 3rd molar is close, but not hitting? Is there likelihood that it will get closer? Or would comparitive X-rays be able to show this? Been almost 2 yrs since I had those x-rays done, so I guess I’m do for another set, perhaps a comparison can show whether or not it’s moving closer or not?

I never had my wisdom teeth removed. I expected to have them removed but by my mid-twenties I hadn’t experienced any problems. Turns out that they grew horizontally, similar to the pic.

[quote]roybot wrote:
I never had my wisdom teeth removed. I expected to have them removed but by my mid-twenties I hadn’t experienced any problems. Turns out that they grew horizontally, similar to the pic.[/quote]

yeah, mine looks like that, but a bit more spacing.

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]tmay11 wrote:
General anesthetic seems like overkill for wisdom teeth removal… When I had mine done, which were by no means easy( had to be “split” in bits- over 2 hours of work) , I was simply under a local anesthetic with no other sort of painkillers even. Drove myself home after the surgery. [/quote]

Everyone doesn’t deal with procedures the same way you do.[/quote]

I had a local also and responded about the same. My children had it much worse, dry sockets in both of my twins when their wisdom teeth were removed.

It’s an anomaly… perform an ordinarily safe procedure on a few million people and something is bound to go wrong. That’s life.

[quote]belligerent wrote:
It’s an anomaly… perform an ordinarily safe procedure on a few million people and something is bound to go wrong. That’s life.[/quote]

That’s not the issue. Just because a few million are getting “recommended” procedures doesn’t mean they were truly needed.

Taking unnecessary risk is the issue.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Everyone does not need their third molars out.

People who do:
Those with impacted molars that are turned sideways and encroaching on the second molar
Those who have PARTIALLY impacted molars where half of the molar is in the oral cavity but the patient can’t clean it which will lead to decay/infection
Those who don’t have the oral hygiene or technique to reach far enough to keep those teeth clean.
Those forming a cyst around their third impacted molars.

I still have my third molars but they came in straight. I am fully aware that deep decay would mean they would need to come out.

yes, most doctors will pause at treatment of this the older the patient is. This is largely because of the increased density of bone as one gets over 30 years of age.[/quote]

Okay separate question.

I have a “crack” in one of my molars from opening beer bottles.

Dentist friend wants to fix it.

I have no problems at this time.

Fix now or wait for problems?

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Everyone does not need their third molars out.

People who do:
Those with impacted molars that are turned sideways and encroaching on the second molar
Those who have PARTIALLY impacted molars where half of the molar is in the oral cavity but the patient can’t clean it which will lead to decay/infection
Those who don’t have the oral hygiene or technique to reach far enough to keep those teeth clean.
Those forming a cyst around their third impacted molars.

I still have my third molars but they came in straight. I am fully aware that deep decay would mean they would need to come out.

yes, most doctors will pause at treatment of this the older the patient is. This is largely because of the increased density of bone as one gets over 30 years of age.[/quote]

Okay separate question.

I have a “crack” in one of my molars from opening beer bottles.

Dentist friend wants to fix it.

I have no problems at this time.

Fix now or wait for problems?
[/quote]

If you wait you could lose the tooth if the crack goes below gum level.

In fact, I would imagine most weight lifters are at risk of fracturing molars. I had two crowns placed because of the same issue.

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Everyone does not need their third molars out.

People who do:
Those with impacted molars that are turned sideways and encroaching on the second molar
Those who have PARTIALLY impacted molars where half of the molar is in the oral cavity but the patient can’t clean it which will lead to decay/infection
Those who don’t have the oral hygiene or technique to reach far enough to keep those teeth clean.
Those forming a cyst around their third impacted molars.

I still have my third molars but they came in straight. I am fully aware that deep decay would mean they would need to come out.

yes, most doctors will pause at treatment of this the older the patient is. This is largely because of the increased density of bone as one gets over 30 years of age.[/quote]

Okay separate question.

I have a “crack” in one of my molars from opening beer bottles.

Dentist friend wants to fix it.

I have no problems at this time.

Fix now or wait for problems?
[/quote]

If you wait you could lose the tooth if the crack goes below gum level.

In fact, I would imagine most weight lifters are at risk of fracturing molars. I had two crowns placed because of the same issue.[/quote]

I have two myself always wondered how the hell that happened (besides beer bottles :))

If it is a small crack and not a problem is it okay to wait?

I mean I am not poor but spending a grand for a non problem at this point just seems cosmetic to me.

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Everyone does not need their third molars out.

People who do:
Those with impacted molars that are turned sideways and encroaching on the second molar
Those who have PARTIALLY impacted molars where half of the molar is in the oral cavity but the patient can’t clean it which will lead to decay/infection
Those who don’t have the oral hygiene or technique to reach far enough to keep those teeth clean.
Those forming a cyst around their third impacted molars.

I still have my third molars but they came in straight. I am fully aware that deep decay would mean they would need to come out.

yes, most doctors will pause at treatment of this the older the patient is. This is largely because of the increased density of bone as one gets over 30 years of age.[/quote]

Okay separate question.

I have a “crack” in one of my molars from opening beer bottles.

Dentist friend wants to fix it.

I have no problems at this time.

Fix now or wait for problems?
[/quote]

If you wait you could lose the tooth if the crack goes below gum level.

In fact, I would imagine most weight lifters are at risk of fracturing molars. I had two crowns placed because of the same issue.[/quote]

I have two myself always wondered how the hell that happened (besides beer bottles :))

If it is a small crack and not a problem is it okay to wait?

I mean I am not poor but spending a grand for a non problem at this point just seems cosmetic to me.
[/quote]

I wrote an entire sentence before about whether the tooth is asymptomatic that was erased by the board. All teeth have cracks in them. Unless they pose a problem to the health of the tooth, they don’t all need to be fixed. That is what the term “craze line” refers to.

Your first molars take the most force when chewing. Getting a new crack on them is not a good sign.

In other words, there is no “always yes” or “always no” answer to your question. There are too many variables and obviously getting a crack on the teeth responsible for taking the most force when chewing is a bad sign of things to come whether you feel pain or not.

^ Gotcha thanks