Wisdom Teeth

Of the 32 permanent teeth that adults have in their mouth, wisdom teeth are arguably the most interesting. They may or may not appear, and we really don’t need them anyway. So why do we get wisdom teeth, then? And why do some people need them removed? To answer those questions, we need to go way back […]

Wisdom teeth were essential for effective digestion in prehistoric times since the diet mainly consisted of raw plants, nuts, and tough meats. Now, wisdom teeth are no longer necessary because of contemporary cooking methods and eating utensils. Today, a person’s mouth is typically too small to accommodate a third set of molars. As a result,

Considering what the past 15 or so months have been like, we all may have made some different plans had we known what was coming. We would have bought stock in disinfectant companies and Zoom Video Communications. We would have gone out to eat every night. And we would have had our teenagers’ wisdom teeth

OK, so this has been a really weird spring thanks to this dumb virus. But life will get back to normal sooner than later. After all, how many jigsaw puzzles can one family do when they’ve never before done a single one together?! In the dental world, regular twice-yearly exams and professional cleanings with the

Wisdom teeth get their name because when they come in the person is older and hopefully wiser. Well, since they generally come in during the late teenage years, that could be up for debate, but that’s their name just the same. At Gentle Dental we remove this third set of molars in our teenage patients

We’ve all known someone who seemed to be closer to a Cro-Magnon man than a modern person. At least they have some teeth in common. Wisdom teeth. Whoever coined the term “wisdom teeth” wasn’t a dentist. This third set of molars is a leftover from our bigger-forehead days and basically only causes trouble in modern

Wisdom teeth are pretty dumb. Leftovers of our caveman past, this third set of molars rarely does anyone any good. At Gentle Dental, we perform wisdom tooth extraction. And summer’s a great time to do it, as the usual wisdom tooth patient is in high school, so doing it now eliminates the need to miss

Wisdom teeth are really anything but wise. They actually are relics of our caveman ancestry when we had much longer jaws and ate lots of stuff like bark and roots that you don’t really find in the produce aisle these days. Back then, our caveman great, great, great, etc. uncle and aunt needed the extra

Despite what some whack jobs say, our distant relatives (not those in Peoria, but those who lived in caves) were around a lot longer than 2,000 years ago. And they didn’t get to go to the local Safeway to pick out dinner. They pretty much ate whatever presented itself, including roots, branches, leaves, nuts, and

Most of us have a story about having our wisdom teeth out because just about everyone has to have them out. Question is, why? If wisdom teeth are so smart, why do we need the dentists at Gentle Dental to take them out? What are they? Anthropologists believe wisdom teeth, known as the third set