Wednesday 12 November 2008

Do wisdom teeth make your front teeth crooked?

This is a question which a patient asked yesterday and I hear fairly frequently. Your wisdom teeth usually come through in your late teens or your twenties. As you get older your teeth move and shuffle about, so often in your late teens or your twenties they will get more crooked. So the natural assumption is that the wisdom teeth have pushed from the back and therefore the front ones have crowded up.

Over the years there has been quite a bit of research on this problem. It shows that even if you have no wisdom teeth, or you have them removed, the front teeth can still change position. Crowding of the teeth (especially the lower front ones) can be considered a natural change as you get older, and it is just a coincidence it happens at the time when wisdom teeth erupt. I should point out the amount your teeth move is not predictable, it's down to individual variation.

So the answer is no, your wisdom teeth do NOT affect your front teeth. Current advice is to leave wisdom teeth alone, and only remove them if they are causing ongoing problems like repeated infection. Which is all ultimately good news for you! Of course, if your teeth are crooked then we can help with that.

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