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Routine dental X-rays are not backed by evidence

(arstechnica.com)
352 points keithly | 1 comments | 14 Oct 24 21:37 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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krackers ◴[14 Oct 24 21:56 UTC] No.41842434[source]▶
Other outdated yet still routine dental practices include polishing of teeth during checkups for any justification other than cosmetic reasons
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jebarker ◴[14 Oct 24 22:03 UTC] No.41842519[source]▶
My bugbear with dentists in the US (after living my first 30 years in the UK) is that they all continually hassle me to have my wisdom teeth removed. Said teeth have never caused me any problems and are all through the gums. I can only assume it's dogma or an opportunity to bill insurance for costly unnecessary surgery.
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hcrisp ◴[14 Oct 24 22:08 UTC] No.41842574[source]▶
I asked mine, and he said the wisdom teeth can crowd teeth if the jaw size is too small causing buckling (a cosmetic issue). More seriously, it can interfere with nerves in your jaw (again because of size constraints) causing numbness / paralysis, etc. Likely the decision to remove them comes down to your genetic / jaw structure and whether they have fully come in yet or not.

https://www.webmd.com/oral-health/wisdom-teeth-removal-neces...

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bsimpson ◴[14 Oct 24 22:25 UTC] No.41842774[source]▶
I had mine done in college. I really didn't want to do it.

I would have been totally happy to buck the pressure of "this is what everyone does," but the thing that made me reluctantly agree to it was an explanation that if I didn't, they would bore holes into my then-back teeth as they grew in and I'd have a big problem to deal with.

As I understood it, teeth normally grow straight up, but wisdom teeth grow sideways (with the tops facing the front of your mouth). The wisdom teeth then hit the rest of your teeth and basically bulldoze your mouth.

I have no idea how true/bullshit that is, but it's what I was told to get me to finally acquiesce to the procedure.

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1. bigstrat2003 ◴[15 Oct 24 07:14 UTC] No.41845781[source]▶
My wisdom teeth came in like you describe. They meet my back molars at a 90 degree angle. They never bothered me, though - I have had two removed because they got infected, but otherwise they never caused any issues.