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Wisdom Teeth Removal Complications
What are the risks of an operation to remove impacted wisdom teeth?
All operations have risks, and your oral surgeon should talk to you about things that could go wrong.
Anaesthetics can have side effects. These are more likely with a general anaesthetic. You may have an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic, or get breathing or heart problems. These problems are serious. If you have any allergies, you must tell your doctor.
It’s hard to say exactly how often problems happen with surgery to remove wisdom teeth. About 1 in 20 people get problems during or after an operation to take out their wisdom teeth. These problems aren’t always serious or permanent. You may get more serious problems if you’re over 25 and have deeply impacted teeth.
1. Sinus Complications
The upper wisdom teeth roots are very close to the maxillary sinus and some people even have roots that go into the sinus. An opening into the sinus after the removal of wisdom teeth occurs once in a while. If this occurs it is likely that bacteria can prevent healing and get into the sinus. This infection does not respond well to antibiotics and often requires additional surgery to drain the sinus.
2. Numbness/ Nerve Damage
Nerves in your mouth may be damaged during surgery to remove your lower wisdom teeth. Your lower lip, chin or tongue may feel tingly or numb. This happens to between 1 and 8 out of 100 people. For 1 in 100 people, the numbness is permanent, where as others regain feeling after 3 months. The lingual nerve may be permanently damaged in up to 1 in 100 people which is the nerve that helps you sense pain and temperature in your mouth. Dentists and surgeons often use an instrument called a lingual nerve retractor to move the nerve out of the way. But this can actually increase the risk of damage. The inferior alveolar nerve can also be damged. This nerve supplies sensation to the lower teeth on the right or left half of the dental arch and the sense of touch to the right or left half of the chin and lower lip.
Learn about nerve damage more in depth!
3. Dry Socket
Between 1 in 10 and 1 in 100 people get a throbbing pain after their operation, which is when a blood clot does not form properly in the socket or is lost prematurely. In some cases, this happens because the patient has disregarded the instructions given by the surgeon. Smoking, spitting or drinking with a straw in disregard to the surgeon's instructions can cause this, along with other activities that change the pressure inside of the mouth, such as playing a musical instrument. The extraction site will become irritated and pain is due to the bone lining the tooth socket becoming inflamed. The symptoms are made worse when food debris trap in the tooth socket. Generally dry sockets heal in a couple of weeks without treatment.
Learn more about dry socket tips, advice, and information.
4. Jaw Fracture
In very rare cases, the removal of a wisdom tooth will weaken the jaw bone. This is due to the obligatory removal of bone to obtain access to the impacted tooth. It is very rare of the jaw to fracture after the removal of a wisdom tooth due to weakening and chewing normal foods.
5. Infection
Infection following the surgical removal of wisdom teeth happens to about 1 or 2 out of 100 people. Signs of infection include fever above 100 degrees, abnormal swelling, pain or a salty or prolonged bad taste, with or without evidence of discharge from the surgical site.
6. Injury to Teeth
Damage to fillings and adjacent teeth, to bridgework or to surrounding bone can occur during the removal of impacted wisdom teeth. Even the best surgeon will occasionally have this type of complication. This is rare and happens to less than 1 in 100 people.
7. Root Fragments
This happens to about 5 in 100 people. You might need to have the fragment removed if it causes problems. Usually the fragment is close to a nerve or adjacent sinus. Removal of the root tip could jeopardize adjacent structures. The oral surgeon uses his clinical expertise to determine the benefit to risk ratio of removing a root tip. The fragments can be monitored using x-rays.
8. TMJ pain
TMJ dysfunction following the removal of wisdom teeth is unusual and usually temporary. If treatment is required, it is usually conservative in nature and includes anti-inflammatory medicines, physical therapy and in some cases short term bite splint therapy.
Learn more about TMJ dysfunction after wisdom teeth removal.
9. Bleeding
Everyone bleeds after surgery, but it should stop by the time you go home. Less than 1 in 100 people have bleeding that is difficult to stop.
10. Air Embolism/ Subcutaneous Emphysema
A gas related embolus can be caused by inadvertent injection of a mixture of air and water under pressure which then passes into the mandible (jaw) to the veins and then to the large vessels leading to the heart. Large amounts of air can cause serious problems including cardiac arrest and death, by traveling to the large veins leading to the heart, and mechanically blocking the flow of blood through the heart.
11. Chronic Headache
Your head can pound 24/7 and cause you severe pain every day.
12. Trigeminal Nerve Damage
Trigeminal neuralgia can develop if there is injury to the trigeminal nerve. This causes episodes of intense pain in the eyes, lips, nose, scalp, forehead, and jaw. Trigeminal neuralgia is considered by many to be among the most painful of conditions and once was labeled the suicide disease because of the significant numbers of people taking their own lives before effective treatments were discovered.
13. Hematoma
A hematoma is a pooling blood in tissues that can happen when a needle moves through blood vessels.
14. Anaphylaxis
A loss of vascular tone indicated by a precipitous fall in blood pressure caused by contact with an allergen (due to anesthesia or another chemical given) can result in bilateral facial manifestations with possible cardiorespiratory symptoms.
15. Angiodema
A massive escape of fluid into the tissue from blood vessels causing large edematous swellings usually appears in the maxilla as a reddened area with well circumscribed rings and a buring sensation..
16. Death
Multiple people have died as a direct result of having their wisdom teeth removed. Learn about death occuring after wisdom teeth removal.
Will surgery be painful?
The pain usually peaks three hours to six hours after the operation. It normally goes away after five days to seven days. You’ll need to take painkillers at first. You could take:
• Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen
• Painkillers, such as paracetamol or codeine.
You may want to take painkillers regularly for the first few days, then only when you feel you need them after that.
References
1. Removing Wisdom Teeth. Clinical Evidence, the British Medical Journal.
2. Michael B. Lee, D.D.S. Patient's Guide to Wisdom Teeth.
3. J.M. Davies and Linda Campbell. Canadian Journal of Anaesthesia. Fatal Air Embolism During Dental Implant Surgery.
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