Why Are Tooth Extractions Necessary?

There's a scene in the movie Cast Away where Tom Hanks, stranded on a desert island with no rescue in sight, is forced to extract one of his own teeth with a pair of rocks. Why? Because he had a toothache. Facing a possible lifetime of isolation with no medical technology in sight, he realized the only way to get rid of the toothache was to get rid of the tooth. So he smashed it out, passing out from the pain.

Fortunately, you're not stranded on a desert island (or if you are, it's apparently a desert island with Internet access). So you don't have to face a tooth extraction every time there's a problem. But sometimes there's just no way around it. Occasionally you'll have a tooth that's just not worth keeping. And when that happens, you'll have to visit the dentist for an extraction.

Here are three of the most common reasons dentists need to perform tooth extractions.

Wisdom Teeth. These back molars often don't grow in until we're in our late teens or early twenties, and for many of us, they grow in impacted. That means they have to be extracted. Wisdom teeth extractions are often complex affairs, requiring patients to be fully anesthetized. Most extractions only require a local anesthetic.

Decayed Teeth. Sometimes, tooth decay takes so much of a tooth that there's no way to save it; in cases like this, extractions are usually the best approach. Your dentist will use dental forceps to rock the tooth back and forth until the periodontal ligament, which holds the tooth in place, is weak enough to remove the tooth.

Orthodontics. Occasionally a tooth will require extraction because it has grown in wrong, is malformed, or is having a negative impact on the surrounding teeth. In cases like these, dentists will often follow the same extraction protocol as they do when a tooth is decayed, but occasionally deeper anesthesia will be required.