Oral Surgery

• If you have had recurrent infections that cause pain, lead to difficulty opening your mouth, cause  facial swelling and require antibiotics to resolve  
• If the wisdom teeth are heavily decayed and cannot be stabilized with a filling 
• If the position of the wisdom tooth is compromising your ability to keep the teeth adjacent clean, or it’s causing decay and damage to the adjacent tooth. 

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Due to the risks involved, it can be a better option to incorporate ways to reduce this risk into your dental regime. We will teach you how to keep the area clean and utilise different tools and methods to prevent infections from occurring.  

The roots of a lower wisdom tooth can be closely associated with a nerve in your jaw (the inferior dental nerve, or ID nerve) that supplies sensation to your lip, teeth, skin overlying your chin and tongue on the side of the face where the tooth sits. If this is the case and we remove the tooth, it can lead to temporary or permanent altered sensation or altered taste sensation in these areas.  

In this case, we can consider performing what is called a ‘Coronectomy’. Our oral surgeon will perform a minor  procedure to cut off the top of the tooth and leave the roots in place, buried in the bone. This will heal over  sealing the roots in the bone. As it will no longer be exposed to the bacteria in the mouth, the infections will  

stop occurring and the nerve will have been left untouched. There is, however, a chance that the roots will  need to be removed in the future. 

• Complex or difficult extractions such as weak, root-filled teeth
• Bone grafting
• Temporomandibular joint disorders
• Minor jaw surgery