
The Prophylactic Extraction of Third Molars: A Public Health Hazard - js2
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1963310/
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throwawayteeth
I had my wisdom teeth removed when I was in my twenties because I thought they
were causing me bad headaches. The headaches went away afterward, and other
than the pain and discomfort of the healing process, haven’t had any issues
from their removal.

My wife similarly had hers removed around the same age with no issues.

Now our current dentist has recommended our daughter have hers removed. Her
teeth were a mess as a kid and she had braces and still has two teeth that in
each other’s position (bad luck, neither my wife nor I needed braces, nor our
son). I’ve seen her x-rays and there does not appear for there to be any room
for the wisdom teeth to emerge. But, my dad has lived with impacted wisdom
teeth without issue and I’m sure plenty of people do.

The UK recommended “The practice of prophylactic removal of pathology-free
impacted third molars should be discontinued in the NHS” in 2000:

[https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ta1](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ta1)

NICE had planned to revisit this guidance but that’s been delayed for over two
years now:

[https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid-
tag525](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid-tag525)

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hprotagonist
I'm guessing this is to do with
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/the-
tro...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/the-trouble-with-
dentistry/586039/)

I had my wisdom teeth pulled just last year and my age starts with a 3. My
longstanding approach was "leave them alone until you have to care", which
worked well. Pulling teeth that aren't infected or impacted or otherwise
causing pain or discomfort seems fairly useless to me.

~~~
nabla9
This seems to be the standard way to do it (at least in Finland).

My dentist asks if there is pain, looks if they have surfaced and takes X-ray
on some years to verify. One of my wisdom teeth was pulled because X-Ray
showed inflammation. Rest of them are still there.

