Your mouth goes through many changes in your lifetime. One dental milestone is the appearance of your wisdom teeth. Wisdom teeth are the third molars that commonly come in around the ages of 17 to 21. These extra molars can be beneficial for chewing when they’re healthy and they come in at the right position, but problems can arise when a wisdom tooth doesn’t have enough space to come in or is in the wrong position.
When your dentist says your wisdom teeth are impacted that means they’re trapped in the jaw or under the gum. When wisdom teeth are poorly positioned, food may be trapped and give bacteria a place to grow. It can also be difficult to get all the way back to floss between the wisdom teeth and the molars next to them.