After your dentist extracts a tooth, a blood clot forms to fill the empty area left behind by the removed tooth. This blood clot provides a protective barrier between the mouth and the exposed nerves and bone underneath, until the gum tissue heals and closes over the extraction site. But in some cases, the blood clot becomes dislodged before the gum tissue heals – a painful condition called alveolar osteitis, or dry socket. In the absence of a blood clot, the extraction site

Approximately 5 million wisdom teeth are removed in the U.S. every year! Because our jaws have evolved to be too small to fit third molars (aka wisdom teeth), they often grow in incorrectly - pushing against other teeth, erupting at an angle, sometimes even getting stuck in the jaw bone. Some lucky people have wisdom teeth that grow in correctly and do not need to get them removed, and an even smaller number of lucky people do not grow wisdom teeth at all! However, chances ar