Extra molars plague students with high costs, pain

I don’t understand the point of useless body parts.

The appendix, body hair and coccyx are all superfluous features which lack a purpose to daily life. But of the many extraneous parts of our bodies, wisdom teeth are the most inefficient.

Common practice today is to extract them at first glance. According to an article by Edward Willett at  www.edwardwillett.com about useless body parts, only 5 percent of the human population has a healthy set of wisdom teeth.

I, not being as fortunate, have had all four of them removed. The doctor feared the teeth’s sideways growth would counteract adjustments made by braces. Therefore, he encouraged me to extract them like most people in the U.S.

The worthlessness of wisdom teeth became clear as I researched the information and options of removal.

The third and final molar set usually appears in the late teens and early 20s. In the past, it is possible the teeth were used to fill gaps caused by the prominence of tooth decay.

A strange fact about them is most people have four wisdom teeth, but it is common for not all of them to come in or develop.

In fact, there are names for the medical condition of having less or more teeth than normal. Absence of one or more wisdom teeth is called “hypodontia,” and extras are referred to as “supernumerary.”

The name for the molars themselves comes from the emerging of the teeth at a later age, when people are supposedly wiser than they were as a child.

The need for wisdom teeth in earlier times might have been more obvious, but for the present, their uselessness has become painful and costly to many humans.

Charges for one tooth extraction can be anywhere from $175 to $330. This amount, times four for a full set,  can tempt someone to sell their firstborn to pull the chompers.

For most people the price determines whether to have an extraction or to forgo the surgery altogether.

Without the needed procedure, people with inflamed wisdom teeth can experience extreme discomfort.

However, if someone is fortunate enough to afford an extraction, the risk of a condition known as “dry socket” can be enough to scare anyone out of the surgeon’s chair. This painful problem is caused when a blood clot dislodges from the empty cavity and can make even the bravest student squeal like a baby.

Either way, patients are put out by their lack of viable options.

The purposeless rear teeth have plagued generations and will continue to serve no meaning to the body in its functionality.

Perhaps the only solution is to be blessed with “hypodontia.”