Symptoms that can lead to tooth extraction

The symptoms leading to tooth extraction can vary greatly depending on the cause. Some people do not feel anything at all, at some point the tooth starts to wobble and falls out. If a tooth is inflamed, for example, this can cause severe pain, which leads the patient to visit the dentist.

Cooling can often relieve the pain a little in the meantime. Often the pain is the main reason for removing the tooth. Sometimes there is also a pressure due to a chronic inflammation, especially when the wisdom teeth are inflamed.

Further symptoms can be a wobbling of the tooth or a bad chewing function. This means that the tooth emerges before all others or no longer has any contact with its counterpart. It has then been pushed out of the tooth socket or into the socket.

Procedure of a tooth extraction

When a tooth is extracted, the patient must first be informed by the dentist about the advantages and disadvantages as well as complications of the treatment. Sometimes an x-ray is also necessary for a reliable diagnosis. Once all formalities have been clarified and the patient agrees, the treatment can begin.

The treatment begins with a local anaesthetic, a so-called local anaesthetic. This involves injecting a substance under the gums, which makes the molar and surrounding area numb. Once the effect is felt, the dentist uses an instrument called a periotome to loosen the gums around the tooth.

This involves cutting through the retaining fibres of the tooth. Afterwards, the dentist tries to pull the tooth out of its socket with pliers. Sometimes it can happen that the crown of the tooth breaks off.

Then the roots are removed one by one with the help of the so-called bone lever and root pliers. Then we check whether all parts of the tooth have been removed. In the upper jaw it is then checked whether there is access to the maxillary sinus through the wound.

The wound is then cleaned and granulation and possibly inflammatory tissue is removed. The dentist may have to sew up the tooth socket. The treatment is then finished and the dentist should inform you about the precautions to take for the next few days.

The dentist should then spend half an hour biting on a gauze swab or tissue handkerchief to compress the wound and stop the bleeding. Under no circumstances should paper handkerchiefs be used. These fibres and trying to remove them completely can cause the wound to tear open again.

Pulling teeth under anaesthesia or short anaesthesia is possible. However, the risk of anaesthesia must be weighed against the benefits. Therefore this option is usually limited to particularly difficult cases.

For example, if several teeth have to be extracted at once and the patient is very afraid of the dentist. Anaesthesia is also the method of choice for small children. The duration of the treatment depends on various factors, for example on how many roots the tooth has and how these roots are anchored in the bone, as well as on which preliminary treatments have already been carried out on the tooth.

Both a root canal treatment and a broken crown can make extraction more difficult. Finally, the skill of the dentist also plays a certain role. All in all, however, the extraction of a molar tooth should go quickly. As soon as there is no pain, one can expect about one to two minutes for a problem-free extraction. If complications occur, the whole procedure can take a little longer than 10 minutes.