h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When your teeth are impacted, it means they are wedged behind the teeth that came before. They're in deep, and they're in crooked, so it takes a lot of work (and pain) to get them out.

When they are non-impacted, it means that they are coming out straight and true. The teeth should be at or near the surface (or if you have a huge mouth like me that can accomodate them, growing in just fine and straight ), and should require a minimum of work and pain. I knew one guy who got his non-impacted wisdom teeth out, all four in the same day. Before the day was out, he had thrown out his gauze and gone on to eating solid food... but he kept the painkillers for recreational purposes.

I think my personal story is the best that can work out though... the two bottom wisdom teeth had enough room, and are fully present now. The upper wisdom teeth are so impacted that they will probably never get out, and so dentists have advised me that, so long as they fail to cause me any discomfort, I am free to leave them right where they are.

Here's a question... why do they call them "wisdom" teeth in the first place? I mean, they come in when you're 17-19, which is the age at which our wisdom is at a lifetime low.

Hrm... While I must say that I don't appreciate the statement about my generation, I would say that they are called wisdom teeth because, back when people were undernourished, they might come in in the early or mid-twenties, when people were coming into their wisdom.

I only have to have the top ones out because, without the bottom ones, they will supposedly keep emerging further and further. The bottom ones had to come out when I was younger because not only were they wedged behind the others, but they were wedged *aganst* the others. This meant that I had no visible twelve-year molars. They not only took out the wisdom teeth, but took out quite a lot of bone above the others.