Impacted teeth happened when a new tooth is ready to emerge and do not have enough space to surface. It differs from wisdom teeth because this can happen at any age between 5 to 20 years of age. The causes are:

- Heredity
- The loss of a tooth prematurely
- Not enough space on the jaw for the teeth to erupt
- Baby teeth that do not fall soon enough.

Most of the problems caused by these teeth are when they tried to push through the gum and can not emerge. Because they are trapped teeth, they will find a way to erupt. They can rotate, be displaced, tilted or drift in an in-appropriate location and at a wrong angle. I have seen some of these teeth in the roof of the mouth on some X-Rays.

This ailment can cause bad breath due to accumulation of food particles, and debris. If not cleaned, this can lead to gum infection and more serious complications.

In rare occasions, sometimes, a cyst or tumor can develop and destroy a good portion of the jaw.

At any time when you have that kind of teeth, chewing is very painful to the point were the tooth need to be remove.

The treatments are:

- Dental surgery
- Tooth extraction
- Antibiotics
- or treatments to reposition the tooth.

Young children will greatly benefit from tooth repositioning. In the case were some of the first molars are missing, it is possible to use braces to reposition the wisdom tooth into the molar location. An Orthodontist is the specialist to do just that.

However, extraction is the most recommended treatment. It is best to extract impacted teeth when the patient is in his early 20 to prevent any problem related to gum disease if they can be located using X-Rays..

A light anesthesia is administered to keep the person calm. A week or so later, the sutures are removed and a complete healing is taking place.

What should you eat after the extraction? Since your body need nutrients to heal properly, the food you choose to eat the first week need to be chosen carefully.

You should avoid: citric food, nuts, crispy bacon and pizza. Food that requires you to sucked or slurped to prevent dry socket. Because protein are very important to heal, choose meat easy to chew, soft beans and rice, soft spread, peanut butter.

Cooked vegetable like carrots, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and so forth, as long as they are soft.

On the fruit side, make a puree out of them. Fruit juices are good as long as they are not acidic.

In the dairy group, go easy with ice cream (un-necessary calories), have instead cottage cheese, yogurt, milk and mozzarella cheese, all recommended to get your calcium.

The bread need to be soft so are the cereals. Pasta are easy to eat. All of these are only recommendations for an easy recovery.