Teens & Wisdom Teeth Removal

4kids4karen

DIS Veteran
Joined
Dec 25, 2006
What age did your teens get their wisdom teeth removed?

My two older boys got them out at the same time. They were 14 & 15 or 15 & 16 (memory is failing me).

DD age 15 just got her's out last week. DS age 16 will be getting his out either over Thanksgiving, Christmas, or a longer weekend. DD was bothering her so she got her's done first. DS looks more impacted than hers but he says they are not bothering him.

Our oral surgeon charged just under $2,000 for DD but our insurance is suppose to reimburse us 80%.
Older boys it has been too long for me to remember what we paid. LOL.

I am surprised many of my DD friends have not had theirs out yet. Just a couple friends that are Senior's in high school. I know when I was in the military, a lot of young folks came in with wisdom teeth and the military removed them within the first year or two of service. I know not everyone has good dental insurance.
 
Mine didn't need to come out until I was early 20s. My 19 year old still has his and has never complained. Why would military require them to come out?
 
Mine didn't need to come out until I was early 20s. My 19 year old still has his and has never complained. Why would military require them to come out?

I get them done before they "need" to come out because by that point the procedure is more difficult. Proactive dental care is always preferred. If not removed early enough roots can be wrapped around the nerves, etc. which would be a more expensive and more difficult removal. Wisdom teeth can push your other teeth and cause them go shift around. Why spend thousands of dollars on braces for wisdom teeth to ruin that? Wisdom teeth can cause headaches and ear aches as well.

The military is not "requiring" them to come out, but is based on individual needs. If they have a future possibility of causing issues, the dentist will recommend removing them. I have met very few people who never had issues with wisdom teeth and never had to consider removing them. The military wants to take care of medical and dental issues before a military person deploys and then has issues during deployment. You can be coded to not be able to deploy for medical or dental problems. Dental problems are easily fixed compared to some medical issues, so the military person is expected to take whatever actions to remain able to deploy.
 
I get all that but I have had good dental care. Around here I have just heard most people in their later college years having them out. My friends daughter is 21 and had hers out this past week before going back to school. My son never had braces so that isn't a concern for him. Our dentist has never mentioned it being necessary. They look at the X-rays so if he saw an issue he would have told us. My son's pediatric dentist has always said he had good jaw spacing
 


I get all that but I have had good dental care. Around here I have just heard most people in their later college years having them out. My friends daughter is 21 and had hers out this past week before going back to school. My son never had braces so that isn't a concern for him. Our dentist has never mentioned it being necessary. They look at the X-rays so if he saw an issue he would have told us. My son's pediatric dentist has always said he had good jaw spacing

That's great for your son.

We asked our dentist specifically, so he gave us the referral to the oral surgeon next door to his office. We went there, they did the xrays, pulled them up on the screen in the computer, discussed the process, scheduled the appointment for DD (waiting for youngest DS until there is a school break). It did take a week for all of DD swelling to go down, so good thing we had it done the week before school started. She went the first couple days of school this week with little bruising on her cheeks. We also had to get hers done before school started because she refuses to miss any school football games or cheerleading events, so the first game is this week and she goes non-stop until winter break on her school cheer activities.
 
My husband never had his out - no braces - he has all 4.
I only every got 2 in (and 2 that nicely just stayed doing nothing way below the gum line). No braces. I had one out in my early 30s and one in my late 30s, when they asked if I'd want a filling or a simple pull, b/c when they are all the way in, it's literally a 90 second pull under regular cavity pain relief (but cavity fills can be a pain). Best decision I have ever made to do them 1 at a time fully in - it was so easy and no recovery needed.
None of my kids have had the dentist mention a need to remove yet. Rather, one of my kids is missing an adult tooth, so may need braces, but may need to keep any wisdom teeth she gets b/c she's not gonna have enough adult teeth.

I am VERY leery pulling perfectly straight teeth with room to come in for no reason. If they are sideways, if they cause immense pain, if they have no room - yeah, do it early. But if your family genes don't go that way, the risks far outweigh the pros. That's why my dentist and I look at x-rays together and talk about them as a team - with yearly x-rays, you can see if something is changing or if something will cause an issue before it does...
 
I still had to get mine out even though the orthodontist had 4 of my regular teeth pulled for braces. My mouth was crowded. When the wisdom teeth came in they hurt. I mentioned it to the dentist and he said they should come out. I don't know if my husband has his. He has horrible oral health.
 


My older son was 16. It cost us $2500. We have no dental insurance at all so we paid the bill ourselves. My younger son still has his wisdom teeth. He's 16 now. The dentist has told us it's not time yet. So we will wait.
 
i think both my kids it was around their junior year in high school-same with most of their friends. neither dh nor i had ours out till our early 20's but it seems like dentists these days keep an eye out for the first appearance on xrays so they can monitor them and extract if they look to become a problem.

The military is not "requiring" them to come out, but is based on individual needs. If they have a future possibility of causing issues, the dentist will recommend removing them. I have met very few people who never had issues with wisdom teeth and never had to consider removing them. The military wants to take care of medical and dental issues before a military person deploys and then has issues during deployment. You can be coded to not be able to deploy for medical or dental problems. Dental problems are easily fixed compared to some medical issues, so the military person is expected to take whatever actions to remain able to deploy.

yup, it was HIGHLY reccomended to a friend's dd that she get it done early on when she joined the reserves. an lds friend said it was a requirement that they get done or written off by a dentist prior to both her sons doing their missions.
 
My husband never had his out - no braces - he has all 4.
I only every got 2 in (and 2 that nicely just stayed doing nothing way below the gum line). No braces. I had one out in my early 30s and one in my late 30s, when they asked if I'd want a filling or a simple pull, b/c when they are all the way in, it's literally a 90 second pull under regular cavity pain relief (but cavity fills can be a pain). Best decision I have ever made to do them 1 at a time fully in - it was so easy and no recovery needed.
None of my kids have had the dentist mention a need to remove yet. Rather, one of my kids is missing an adult tooth, so may need braces, but may need to keep any wisdom teeth she gets b/c she's not gonna have enough adult teeth.

I am VERY leery pulling perfectly straight teeth with room to come in for no reason. If they are sideways, if they cause immense pain, if they have no room - yeah, do it early. But if your family genes don't go that way, the risks far outweigh the pros. That's why my dentist and I look at x-rays together and talk about them as a team - with yearly x-rays, you can see if something is changing or if something will cause an issue before it does...

That’s very good genes.

My kids all showed coming in sideways and the younger two have petite mouths.

My second son had X-rays around age 11 or 12 and it shows “an extra tooth” blocking his 12-year molars. So he had oral surgery to remove it. That was an early wisdom tooth. So in high school when the oral surgeon went to extract his wisdom teeth, he only had three to remove.

Every in my household goes to the dentist every six months for preventative care.
 
I was 30 when I had mine out. They were partially erupted so the extraction was a bit easier. I just had Novocain not anesthesia and it was $400. Back in the day, it was really common for kids to get theirs out when home from college on break.
 
My dh & I both had ours taken out during college (20-21yo). None of our parents had them taken out (or had braces and we both did).

My dd18 still has her wisdom teeth. Dentist has said they are not problematic at this time. Just sitting there nicely behaving themselves.

My dd15 had hers out a few months ago. She has a lot of crowding and they were coming in wonky and causing problems for her orthodontia treatment. We paid $1900, even with dental insurance.

My boys are too young still.
 
DD had hers out when she was 16. She's on her father's insurance so I don't know how much it cost. She had 4 wisdom teeth and 2 supernummerary taken out so we did get 6 teeth out for the price of 4 :)

I know when I was in the military, a lot of young folks came in with wisdom teeth and the military removed them within the first year or two of service. I know not everyone has good dental insurance.

When I was in the military at my first dental exam, the dentist told me I didn't have enough leave (we were limited to 2 weeks) to recover:sad1: When I got out 10 years later they said it wasn't indicated. So...at 48 mine are still in my head. At this point I'll have them out when/if they are symptomatic. It makes my regular dentist super nervous but I figure I'll cross that bridge when/if I need to.
 
DD13 had hers taken out this summer. Overall she's had overcrowding, and the wisdom teeth were coming in sideways, and making her lower teeth shift after braces were removed, even though she has a permanent retainer in place. She is a dental anomaly, requiring oral surgery to get rid of gum and bone just so that her 12 yr old molars could be exposed for braces brackets to be placed on them over a year ago. Poor kid.
 
My dd18 still has her wisdom teeth. Dentist has said they are not problematic at this time. Just sitting there nicely behaving themselves.

yup, dh's were the same until he got a nasty cavity in one. dentist wouldn't do a filling on a wisdom tooth and oral surgeon gave us the timeline/cost for removing the one vs. all 4 at once. when we ran the numbers on time off work and copay of potentially 4 individual vs. 1 single procedure it was better to just get it over and done with.
 
DD13 had hers taken out this summer. Overall she's had overcrowding, and the wisdom teeth were coming in sideways, and making her lower teeth shift after braces were removed, even though she has a permanent retainer in place. She is a dental anomaly, requiring oral surgery to get rid of gum and bone just so that her 12 yr old molars could be exposed for braces brackets to be placed on them over a year ago. Poor kid.

This was done for my dd15 also! Her 12yr old molars still hadn't erupted and so they removed some bone and tissue and then put wires around them to pull them up. When she goes to the ortho, they twist some screw that is attached to keep them moving up. They are almost all the way out and brackets should be able to go on them soon.
 
yup, dh's were the same until he got a nasty cavity in one. dentist wouldn't do a filling on a wisdom tooth and oral surgeon gave us the timeline/cost for removing the one vs. all 4 at once. when we ran the numbers on time off work and copay of potentially 4 individual vs. 1 single procedure it was better to just get it over and done with.

My dd18's are sitting nicely but still under the gum. So no cavities to worry about at this point. I do think she will eventually have them removed...probably more along the age her dad and I were (20-21)...but she has a chronic illness which would make recovery harder for her. So, since hers are behaving and she's working on getting well, we just let the wisdom teeth be for now.
 
When I was in the military at my first dental exam, the dentist told me I didn't have enough leave (we were limited to 2 weeks) to recover:sad1: When I got out 10 years later they said it wasn't indicated. So...at 48 mine are still in my head. At this point I'll have them out when/if they are symptomatic. It makes my regular dentist super nervous but I figure I'll cross that bridge when/if I need to.

You got a dentist that didn't know what he/she was talking about. He needs to stay in his lane and leave HR to HR. You would have gotten three days convalescent leave (non-chargeable days). I am retired Air Force HR but worked in joint commands and all branches give convalescent leave to recover from wisdom teeth removal. So the day of surgery PLUS three days. If you have weekends off, Tuesdays are a great day to have the surgery because you have five days to recover.
 
My son got all his baby teeth and then adult teeth way ahead of schedule.. so did my husband. The dentist showed me on an X-ray that ds’s wisdom teeth were coming in at 12 .. but she didn’t say they needed to come out yet. We forgot about it . Last year there were two or three times that ds stayed home from school because his throat and ear hurt and then it never turned into anything and he went back the next day. It didn’t occur to me until later that it was his teeth coming in that was hurting his throat and ear. One night he came out of his room and said .. “I think my teeth are getting crooked.” Sure enough, his bottom teeth have shifted and crowded because of the wisdom teeth..they were perfectly straight prior to this. We saw the dentist again right after that and she hadn’t expected them to come in so fast.
He’s 14 now and getting them out the first week of October over the Canadian Thanksgiving so that he won’t have to miss too much school. It’s being done in office and our quoted cost is $2100.
 
You got a dentist that didn't know what he/she was talking about. He needs to stay in his lane and leave HR to HR. You would have gotten three days convalescent leave (non-chargeable days).

No, he was correct. I was an intern and was only allowed 2 weeks and only during specific rotations (my first week of leave was January after beginning in June, the second week was in June a year after beginning). Back then it was prior to the 80 hour workweek for trainees and I don't remember actually having an entire weekend off for about two years unless on leave. Obviously things have changed a bit with restricted work hours but that was after my time.

My girlfriend had surgery as an intern and it had to wait until she was on a certain call schedule and it took all of her vacation for the academic year. We still earned 30 days but were not allowed to take them...would be considered UA. Before I checked out of the hospital for con leave (post partum) I had to run my leave chit all around the hospital to have everyone sign off on it. Physicians can be fairly hard on each other.
 

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