Talk to me about impacted canine tooth removal please

[starfish4]

DD is under the orthodontist. For the first time today it was mentioned her first xray showed her two upper canines were growing in the wrong direction. Orthodontist had hoped they could come through and hopefully be corrected to some extent by her removable brace. One still hasn't come through, so another xray has been done today and depending on what's seen she may need surgery.

Can anyone tell me what's involved or their experiences. How long does it take, any problems? They did say they would phone to tell me she'd be referred for surgery, so what should I ask if it happens? This came out of the blue to me, I'd already asked lots of questions about her braces this time, on top of having to deal with a household emergency call out earlier and then someone bumped into our car an hour before, so I wasn't thinking straight to ask

I had mine removed under GA in hospital at age 15ish. The op was fine. I was on a ward with mostly wisdom tooth removals and mine was far far far less trauma.
Normal GA issues (feeling a bit woozy). One or two nights in.
Lots of swelling afterwards and salt rinses but I don't remember any real pain.

My DD is also under the orthodontist. Our dentist pointed out the orthodontist has informed him she has concerns over a tooth in the upper mouth and this was the first we'd heard as well. Due to type of treatment so far DD has only had to see orthodontist every six months so far, so anxious to get to the bottom of this.

I hope you get some answers, as I'm interested as well.

Hi Star, sorry to hear about yesterday, one thing after !
No answers for you Im afraid but watching with interest as my DDs canines are both under her nose and are making no signs of moving. We've been referred to the Maxi Facial dept at local hospital.
The Orthodontist said she may have to have them removed which sounded horrendous to me!!

My DD is under the orthodontist for, inter alia, an impacted canine. It first came to light two years ago. Initially, hers was jammed up beside her nose, she could feel it under the skin.

She had x Rays and various consultations and it seemed as if it was in a really poor position and unlikely to be successfully brought through. However, for various reasons, we wanted to give it a try if at all possible. She was referred to the max fac people and a different x ray taken, one down from above her head. That showed that there was a chance and she had surgery at the end of last August and a chain attached. Braces went on a few weeks later and the tooth has now made an appearance.

We wanted to give the tooth a good chance as she also has a missing lateral incisor on the opposite side and a small adult one on the impacted side. We wanted to keep as many teeth at the front as we could.

When she saw the original orthodontist recently, he was surprised how well it has come through given its original position. He agreed that it is hard to tell until the top down x ray is seen.

We were advised that if it couldn't be brought down then surgical removal would be necessary. Extensive orthodontic work to haul around the adjacent teeth and reshaping work would then have been required.

We wanted to try the recovery option first as we are keen to avoid work on the lower set which would be needed otherwise.

I had something similar. They showed no signs of moving so I had them pulled down (this involved moving all the other teeth back using a head brace and then chains attached and pulled down). It wasn't that painful but took a long time. I was told the option was leave them where they were and then when the baby teeth fell out to have false teeth (not sure implants were an option then). Unfortunately the pulling down damaged the root of the neighbouring tooth and I had to have that removed about 10 years later! Wish I hadn't bothered with the whole thing really!

So I'd definitely ask if there are any similar risks so you can weigh it all up

Thanks for your replies. The only option the dentist had told us about is removal, so obviously need to check if this is absolutely necessary or whether tooth can be pulled down.

She's got a twin block brace at the moment, but is having permanent ones fitted in six weeks, as teeth have quite a lot of gaps at top - last thing she needs is a missing side tooth.

One positive point is that her orthodontist operates under the same surgery as the Max Fac Team at the hospital, so the recent xray (done on a new scanner) should be the same as they'd want.