What Dentists Should Say to Patients when Something Doesn’t Go Right

Unfortunately dentists and oral surgeons don’t always have all procedures go as planned for their patients. For example, when it comes to wisdom tooth surgery, it is possible for the wrong set of wisdom teeth to be removed as is discussed on the wisdom teeth complications page, see https://www.teethremoval.com/complications.html. Since procedures don’t always go as planned, on this site before guidance for patients who want to be very defensive has been provided, see the post The Defensive Patients Guide to Wisdom Teeth Removal. While patients can sometimes be bad actors and deny that certain information was provided to them prior to a procedure (see the post Patient Recall During Informed Consent for Wisdom Teeth Surgery), dentists and oral surgeons also can behavior badly such as by telling patient’s after their procedure that their condition that resulted could not have possibly … Read more

Patients Wisdom Teeth Extraction Results in Reactive Arthritis

An interesting article titled “Reactive Arthritis Resulting From Postoperative Complications of Third Molar Extraction: A Case Report,” appears in Cureus in August 23, 2022, written by Lauren Maytin and Jeffrey Morrison (vol. 14, no. 8, pp. e28325). The article presents a case report of a 23 year old woman who develped reactive arthritis after wisdom teeth extraction. In the article the authors discuss a 23 year old woman who had a history of lower back and joint pain but developed more severe of symptoms of bilateral shoulder pain, decreased range of motion in her left shoulder, and worsening lower back after having an infected infected wisdom tooth extracted. She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and and was prescribed adalimumab. Her laboratory results showed elevated indicators of inflammatory activity that were positive for HLA-B27. The woman presented to two weeks after wisdom … Read more

Womans toothache that led to Wisdom Teeth Removal Turns out to be Cancer

A 29 year old woman in Scotland began to experience pain in her mouth in September 2020 and also felt a pea-sized lump on her jawline. She thought the pain and problems were due to not having wisdom teeth extracted and that an infection had developed. She later had four wisdom teeth extracted Glasgow Dental Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, and then spent 12 months on antibiotics. After the wisdom teeth were removed she continued to have a swollen gland or lymph node and she continued to feel something was not quite right. In January 2021, he went in for a biopsy and CT scan. Four days after these tests were done she was told she had a cancerous lump and was diagnosed with osteosarcoma cancer. She started chemotherpay in early March 2021. She later had to have bone reconstruction, skin grafts … Read more

Horizontally Impacted Wisdom Teeth on Both Sides

An interesting article titled “Impacted Third Molars, A Rare Occurrence of Identical Bilateral Impacted Mandibular Third Molars in Linguo-Buccal Location: A Case Report” written by Shaul Hameed Kolarkodi and et al. appears in Cureus (vol. 13, no. 12, e20858). The article describes the case of a 20 year old man who had bilateral horizontally impacted lower wisdom teeth which found on a panoramic radiograph and also later confirmed with cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) imaging. In the article the authors described how impacted wisdom teeth are when they cannot erupt into the proper position. They mention how doctors encounter many types of impaction of wisdom teeth teeth and mention how having horizontally impacted lower wisdom teeth on both sides is rare. Impacted wisdom teeth can happen due to a lack of space or a pathological change that can disrupt the … Read more

Charli XCX Latest Celebrity to Have Wisdom Teeth Removed

Charli XCX is the latest celebrity to have wisdom teeth removed. In the past many other celebrities who have had wisdom teeth extracted have been discussed on this site. See for example the posts Celebrities who have had Wisdom Teeth Extracted and Recent Celebrities to have Wisdom Teeth Removal. Charli XCX, who real name is Charlotte Emma Aitchison, is a 30 year old English singer and songwriter. Charli shared a photo of her lying in a hospital bed on Thursday January 5th, 2023. In the photo she is seen with with giant gauze pack in her mouth, a monitoring device connected to her forehead, one shoulder falling out of her hospital gown, and the other shoulder with a blood pressure cuff. In the caption of the photo Charli said, “all my wisdom has gone. dumb and inexplicable decisions only from now on.” Charli … Read more