When you have a permanent tooth that doesn’t fully erupt or that doesn’t erupt at all you have an impacted tooth.

We see this a lot at Woodland Hills Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and are here to tell you that this is quite common and usually it doesn’t cause any problems. However, an impacted tooth can be painful, result in a misaligned bit, or cause other complications.

There are various reasons why teeth become impacted. One of the main reasons is that your mouth is already overcrowded. This happens when your jaw doesn’t have enough room for any more teeth.

Another common reason for impacted teeth is your teeth have been displaced, causing them to erupt at a weird angle. When this happens full eruption usually doesn’t happen.

Impacted teeth can cause a lot of problems. One of the main problems is that you’ll have bad breath because food will get trapped under it. This can also cause the other nearby teeth to become decayed, making it harder to care for these teeth and possibly resulting in gum disease.

Partially impacted teeth aren’t as problematic, but they can still cause you issues. A lot of these issues are about how you use your mouth. For instance, you may occasionally have trouble opening and closing your mouth. When this happens, you could experience a variety of types of pain – gums, jawbone, and chronic headaches. Your gums may also grow sensitive, red, and swollen, especially around the area of the impacted tooth itself.

Regardless of why your teeth are impacted, you really need to make an appointment with our office. We’ll start by taking some x-rays to determine what to do with this tooth.

Sometimes it’s a matter of helping the tooth erupt, but there are also times when the tooth really does need to be removed. Unfortunately, we won’t know what needs doing until we look at your tooth so give Woodland Hills Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery a call today at (818) 999-0900.