I have two impacted molars that I had never thought about until I've been having a lot of problems with my teeth lately. And I'm now wondering if one or both of those may be part of the culprit. One oral surgeon I saw said it was no big deal to have the uppers out, and in fact it was less invasive. Really? After reading what's involved with taking them out and how it can cause problems with your nasal cavity. I was wondering if anyone has had upper impacted molars removed and what was your experience? Did you have complications? How was your recovery time?
I've never had them removed but I did take classes in skeletal biology where I learned a lot about the teeth. Where your upper molars are in your mouth are approximately right under your cheekbones, or at least a little bit behind them. That general area does not have a lot of sinus cavities but right under your eyes are what's called maxillary sinuses. These are the ones that gets clogged up when you have a cold. So say you take your upper molars out and something goes wrong. Because of all the nerves, tiny blood vessels and holes (fun fact: they're called foramen) in your skull, I can see the potential of the infection from your upper molar extraction to connect to your maxillary sinuses. I think whether or not it will get infected will depend on several things: how well you clean them, how good of a job the oral surgeon does, and how fast you recover. Some people are meticulous about cleaning their teeth and will have no problem at all, but others could not care more and will end up with food getting stuck there and thus leading to an infection. If your oral surgeon is great, they'll do a pretty good job extracting to make sure there's nothing left in there and the clean-up process is neat and tidy. Also, everyone heals at a different time and rate. I may heal faster than you, and it's honestly hard to tell from one person to another. Only you know your healing time best.
Thanks for the thorough reply. I still honestly don't want to deal with taking these teeth out. I just gawk at the surgeon saying that the upper ones are easier to remove. It does not sound like it would be, and when you think about where they are located, it dose not seem like they would be easy to remove.
