I'm in a little bit of a dental predicament that I hope can be solved before it becomes an issue.
I have a narrow jaw and my dentist says that there is not enough room in my mouth for all of my teeth and my wisdom teeth will eventually have to be pulled. I have all of my teeth in except for my wisdom teeth. My top jaw has fairly strait teeth, but on my bottom jaw the left side canine tooth sits a good bit forward from the rest of my teeth. The back part of this tooth is about even with the middle of the rest of my teeth, just so you can visualize. More of the tooth is exposed than there normally would be since it is pushed forward and the gum at this tooth is quite a bit lower than it is on my other teeth. Its never given me any problems other than not looking nice in pictures. I asked my dentist about it a few years ago and he said there was no reason for it to be pulled, but if it bothered me I could have lower jaw braces put on.
My predicament comes in with the fact that my dentist says there's not enough room for my wisdom teeth. My bottom left wisdom tooth is starting to come in. I'm worried that it may come in all the way and shove my canine tooth even more out of position to the point where the canine has to be pulled. I'm severely allergic to all forms of "caine" medications so normal teeth extraction is not an option for me. I'd have to be knocked out completely.
I'd prefer not to have any teeth pulled, but unfortunately I don't think its going to turn out that way. I don't go to the dentist often because I can't afford it so my teeth aren't checked up on often. I think the last time I was there and actually got a though examination was around 10 years ago. About 2-3 years ago I went in under the suspicion that my wisdom tooth was abcessing (it wasn't) and this is when I asked about my misaligned canine tooth.
But if it comes down to it.... which tooth should I have pulled, the wisdom tooth or the canine tooth? And since I don't go for regular dentist visits, how can I know that either tooth (the wisdom or canine) is starting to have problems. If I decide to have the wisdom tooth pulled I'd like to delay it as long as possible, but I don't want to wait too long that my canine becomes loose and they end up having to take both. How do I know when it is time?
And, hope against hope, but it is it possible for a wisdom tooth to stop coming in once it has already started to come in?
Hopefully this isn't something I'll have to deal with soon as only one corner of the wisdom tooth is in and at this point the canine doesn't really bother me and it is not loose.
It seems to me the main thing you need to do is see the dentist more often - have you read some of the posts on here?! Even if the cost is an issue, when things go wrong you wish you'd sorted it out earlier, and if you end up with serious problems that need dealing with that's going to cost a lot more.
If teeth need to be extracted, there may be other options than the wisdom tooth or canine, but you need professional advice. Lots of people need to have their wisdom teeth removed so you're not alone - but there can be complications.
Regular dental visits for cleaning and checkup are not that expensive. Save up for them if necessary.
It is much better to go to planned dental appointments with known small costs, and to find out about potential problems early, when treatment can usually be planned and will likely be less expensive (and can be saved up for), rather than only going to the dentist when something has gotten bad enough to hurt, requiring urgent unplanned dental work that is also much more expensive (that you would not have saved up for). If you read many of the other threads here, you'll find many people who avoided going to the dentist until something hurt, and now face only undesirable and expensive options.
If there is a dental school nearby, you may want to consider going there for dental visits. Cost is lower, in exchange for being a subject that dental students learn to work on under supervision of instructors.
As far as the partially erupted wisdom tooth goes, being partially erupted means that it is most likely to cause problems in the future (e.g. infection under the gum due to difficulty cleaning the partially erupted tooth and gum around it).
