Was Wisdom Teeth Removal Performed Without Consent that Lead to Trigeminal Nerve Damage, Migraines, and Dizziness?

An Illinois woman has filed a lawsuit against her dentist and dentist assistant in October, 2019, alleging that four wisdom teeth were extracted without informed consent. Just before the surgery occurring in September 2017, the woman alleges that she spoke with the dental assistant about concerns with going forward with the extraction. However, the surgery proceeded and the woman was given general anesthesia. The woman’s boyfriend at the time of the surgery signed of on the informed consent form although there was no legal right to do so. The dentist was not aware that the woman had nerves that were too close to the wisdom tooth and thus should have required a more complex procedure. The suit says the dentist used an “overly aggressive, improper technique” and “negligently and carelessly failed to properly inform the plaintiff of all the risks.” … Read more

Wisdom Teeth and Mandibular Angle and Condyle Fractures

An interesting article titled “The relationship between the lower third molar (M3) and mandibular angle/condyle fractures – a systematic review” written by Akadiri et al. appears in Oral Surgery in 2017 (vol. 10, pp. e7-e16). The article seeks to determine mandibular angle/condyle fractures risk when an impacted wisdom tooth is present or not. In some studies the the presence of impacted wisdom teeth has been associated with increased risk of mandibular angle fractures which those who suggest prophylactic removal of wisdom teeth like to use as a valid reason. However in other studies there has been show an increased risk for mandibular condyle fracture after removing a wisdom tooth. The authors performed a systematic literature review and explored articles from 1970 to 2015. Articles included in the review meet a set of author defined criteria including using Kelly and Harrigan’s … Read more

Dental Drills Leading to Thermal Burns

In the past a discussion of thermal burns occurring after dental procedures and in particular wisdom teeth removal has been made. In one post it was highlighted how such thermal burns can lead to teasing and unwanted nicknames. A few other cases of thermal burns are discussed on the wisdom teeth removal complications page. In the past a discussion has also been made about how search engines including Google and Bing present differing results for the keyword “thermal burn wisdom teeth” in their image searches in the post titled The Search Engine Battle: Are you Paying Attention?. Since that article was published in late 2013 and it is now 2020, over 6 years have passed and as such revisiting this is warranted. In the past in late 2013, Google had ineffective results for the keyword “thermal burn wisdom teeth” in … Read more

The Defensive Patients Guide to Wisdom Teeth Removal

Medical doctors are often accused of practicing what is known as defensive medicine. With defensive medicine, a doctor will deviate from the normal practice of medicine in order to perform a medical treatment or run a diagnostic test in order to reduce potential exposure to a malpractice lawsuit. This leads to treatments and tests that are not clinically necessary and is often said to be a cause of overtesting and overtreatment. Defensive medicine is discussed as serving to protect the physician from a lawsuit by the patient. What is not discussed is the idea that a patient can also practice defensive medicine to protect the patient from losing a legitimate lawsuit against the physician. Applying this concept to wisdom teeth surgery, the following is suggested for a patient to help protect themselves from losing a legitimate lawsuit against a physician, … Read more

Wisdom Teeth Tweets From Twitter

In the past some wisdom teeth related tweets from Twitter have been shared on this site. See for example the posts Wisdom Teeth Removal: Tweets from Twitter and Indications for Removal of Wisdom Teeth. Below are some more recent wisdom teeth related tweets that have been shared on Twitter. 1. Related to Dry Socket 2. Related to Growing Pains 3. Related to Nerve Damage 4. Related to Sinus Complications Hopefully you found the above tweets interesting and or relevant. From the tweets many people were not happy about experiencing dry socket after having wisdom teeth removed. Others were not happy with pain and/or headaches experienced when their wisdom teeth are growing in. Still others had concerns about nerve damage from having wisdom teeth extracted. Further other tweets were related to sinus complications experience after having a wisdom tooth extracted. If … Read more