You are here:

Impacted teeth/wisdom teeth

Impacted teeth/wisdom teeth

An impacted tooth is any tooth that has not erupted normally into a functional tooth which meets the corresponding upper or lower tooth. It could be completely buried or partially buried, it can be upright or tipped in any direction.

The most common teeth to be impacted are wisdom teeth (3rd molars) second premolars, one of two teeth located in the upper jaw, and canines. However, any tooth can fail to erupt normally and therefore become impacted.

What are the causes of impacted teeth?

The most common cause for a tooth to become impacted is insufficient space for it to erupt normally into the dental arch. With wisdom teeth, this is very common, because our jaws are just not as big as they used to be, and our teeth don’t drift forward as much as they used to allowing the wisdom teeth to come through. Other teeth can become impacted through lack of room due to other factors such as premature loss of milk teeth. Other causes can be damage to the developing permanent tooth (such as a developmental disturbance in shape of teeth), where the developing root is injured, and the developing tooth fails to erupt normally) sometimes it just happens for no obvious reason.

Impacted teeth

Jaw consultants

Useful links

Looking to speak to our team? Call us on 020 7046 8000

To book an appointment
or refer a patient