When Is a Tooth Extraction Necessary?

A significant part of a dentist’s job is to keep your teeth in your mouth and healthy. However, they perform extractions on occasion to safely remove a tooth if keeping the tooth in place causes more problems than it prevents or resolves. While having your natural adult teeth is always ideal, sometimes an extraction is best for the health or function of your mouth.

Dentist Leon Brannon Reed, DDS, performs safe tooth extractions at 1st American Dental in Tempe, Arizona. Before removing your tooth, he makes sure you understand the benefits. 

When you can’t save the tooth

Many tooth injuries and complications are treatable with procedures in a dental office. If a traumatic injury causes inflammation inside of a tooth, for example, you can typically resolve the pain and save the tooth with a root canal. Our team might be able to treat a decayed tooth by removing the decay and capping the tooth with a crown. 

While advanced dental treatments allow our team to repair several tooth damages and diseases without removing a tooth, there are severe cases where treatments cannot repair a tooth effectively. 

In these cases, our team might suggest replacing the tooth rather than repairing it. Before you get a bridge, implant, or denture, our team will need to remove the tooth and its root via an extraction procedure.

Issues like tooth decay or infection can worsen the longer you keep the tooth in your mouth, so an extraction can prevent complications. 

Making space

Sometimes, our team recommends extractions for teeth that are healthy. That is usually because you need more space in your mouth. Crowded teeth can cause an array of issues, including headaches, jaw misalignment, and cavities. But, when your teeth have plenty of space, they’re easier to keep clean with brushing and flossing. 

We often extract one or more overcrowded teeth before patients undergo orthodontic treatments like braces. That leaves space for your teeth to straighten over time as the braces guide your teeth into a more optimal alignment. 

Wisdom teeth extractions, a common type that removes the four molars in the far back of your mouth, can prevent your wisdom teeth from crowding all of your other teeth as they erupt. By extracting your wisdom teeth early, you might also be able to avoid significant complications like a tooth abscess in an impacted (unerupted) wisdom tooth. 

If you have any oral health complications and need an extraction, you can trust Dr. Reed to conduct the procedure safely and guide you through the healing process. Schedule a treatment consultation over the phone or online at our office in Tempe, Arizona, today.