Extractions of wisdom teeth

Extraction of 37, 38 and 48

As you can see, there's extensive bone loss between 37 & 38. I offered root resection of 37 and extraction of 38, but the patient said he'd just take them out both. Fine with me, simpler and faster. The mesial root tip of 38 was ankylosed and was retained  during the extraction procedure, along with the curved distal root tip... so I had to dig into the sockets with the root tip. It was alright... total time spent, 11minutes.

This was a bit more challenging. Can you see that the root tips of this wisdom tooth is joined with the "tunnel like" interproximal bone in between? Because of that I could not section the roots too easily. I did raise my question on the joint roots initially, but I couldn't believe it till I actually tried luxating the tooth. The tooth became quite mobile with the stripping of the crown to provide a bit more space with the tooth in front. However it wasn't going to be so easy because there was a channel of bone in between the roots that was holding the tooth. I sectioned the tooth, removed the interproximal bone, then twisted the root tips out. Quite nerve breaking using the handpiece so close to the nerve!! Total time spent, 23minutes.

 

My aim is making the incision on the gum as neatly as possible, putting sutures in as neatly as possible, and making the extraction wound as small and minor as possible for better and faster healing. I have so many third molar extraction cases coming up next week... very looking forward to them all!! ......who knew... a girl who was so scared of extraction would become a tooth buster..... that's why people say, you've got to live to see how things turn out! You never know when pigs will fly...... so watch this space.