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Causes
By Mayo Clinic staff
Early humans needed wisdom teeth and larger jaws to handle a tougher diet. Today's humans typically have smaller jaws and little use for wisdom teeth. That often means problems as your wisdom teeth begin to emerge. Having pesky wisdom teeth surgically extracted seems almost a rite of passage for teens and young adults.
Wisdom teeth develop like your other teeth. But they take the longest to develop and are the last teeth to emerge. Any tooth can become impacted. Because wisdom teeth must fight for space with teeth that have already emerged, they're the teeth most likely to become impacted.
At about age 9, the crown of a wisdom tooth begins to form in a small sac inside your jaw. Over time, the tooth grows and the roots become more firmly planted in the jawbone. By your early 20s, the crown of a wisdom tooth should fully emerge from your gum. By your 40s, the roots of your wisdom teeth are solidly planted within the dense bone of the jaw.
But wisdom teeth often don't follow this normal development pattern. Today's smaller jaws simply may not have room for this last set of molars to grow properly. So the wisdom teeth may become impacted.
The cramped wisdom teeth struggle for a path to grow and emerge. They grow at various angles in the jaw, sometimes even horizontally. Sometimes, a wisdom tooth partially emerges through the gums. Other times, it remains completely hidden.
