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How Long Does It Take For Wisdom Teeth To Come In?

October 30, 2022

Wisdom teeth were once necessary for our ancestors, due to their diet of tough to chew raw plants and meat. But today, our diet has evolved as we have ourselves, making wisdom teeth no longer necessary, and for many patients, necessary to remove.

Removing Wisdom Teeth

Along with no longer being necessary for our ability to eat, wisdom teeth often don’t fit well in our mouths and jaws. This is due to the fact that today human jaws are significantly smaller in size than that of our ancestors. And so, without enough room to easily fit, wisdom teeth often push up and crowd other teeth once they erupt, or they are unable to properly erupt, staying stuck in the gum and causing impaction, and possibly an infection. To prevent complications, regularly seeing your dental team is key.

Extracting Impacted Wisdom Teeth

The solution to impacted wisdom teeth is extraction. This will put an end to swollen gums, pain and discomfort, and the possibility of infection. Extracting wisdom teeth that have fully erupted but are crowding your mouth is also a good idea to prevent crooked teeth, and the gum disease and tooth decay that can be caused when you can’t properly reach your other molars for brushing and flossing due to the crowding in your mouth.

Extraction, or removing wisdom teeth is most often done in your dentist or oral surgeon’s office, using either local sedation, IV sedation, or general anesthesia to prevent the experience of pain during the extraction. The gum tissue surrounding the tooth is opened if the tooth is impacted, the tooth removed, and sutures placed to close the wound. It usually takes only around 2 to 4 days to recover from a typical extraction; however, if the wisdom teeth are badly impacted, it can take longer, possibly up to a week.

So How Long Does It Take for Wisdom Teeth to Come In?

Sometimes, patients will wait for wisdom teeth to come in, hoping that an impacted tooth will break through the gum surface and either grow straight without crowding the mouth, or be easier to remove than an impacted tooth. In this case, the question is often asked as to just how long it takes for wisdom teeth to emerge in the mouth.

Wisdom teeth typically will begin to erupt between ages 17 and 25. But the eruption timeline is different for everyone. For some, it might take years for the wisdom teeth to fully and completely emerge from the gums, and in other cases, they may never erupt!

With this in mind, it’s important that you have regular dental checkups which can detect any complications such as impacted wisdom teeth before it becomes a bigger problem. Regardless of whether your wisdom teeth are free of symptoms, issues can occur, from having an inadequate amount of space in the mouth, to complicating your regular dental cleaning and care at home. Pain can also occur suddenly.

And, another good reason to schedule a regular consultation about your wisdom teeth is to avoid complications that become more prevalent as you grow older.