I&#x27;m 29 years old and have six wisdom teeth at the moment.<p>I have two protruding out of the upper jaw which haven&#x27;t caused me any problems, so the (UK NHS) dentist said they don&#x27;t need to come out. X-rays showed that there was actually another unemerged tooth behind each of them as well. These upper teeth have all been there for for about 7 or 8 years now and haven&#x27;t caused me any discomofort beyond the initial breaking of the gum.<p>On the lower jaw however, both teeth are impacted. The left wisdom tooth is completely horizontal and pushing up against the molar in front and the lower right wisdom tooth is impacted at an angle and irritates the gum around it from time to time. I usually pop some ibuprofen when it gets uncomfortable.<p>I&#x27;ve wouldn&#x27;t say I&#x27;ve experienced serious pain from these teeth, more just a dull ache or discomfort or irritation of the gum, but I was referred to a dental surgeon a year or so ago who basically told me he wouldn&#x27;t take them out.<p>He claimed that the lower teeth were so well developed at this point that removing them might expose the nerve in my jaw underneath and leave the lower half of my face numb, potentially for the rest of my life. As a risk&#x2F;benefit calculation he decided against taking them out for now, but may change his mind if they cause problems in the future, which they likely will.<p>This is an NHS dental surgeon though and I&#x27;m wondering if I might be best served getting an a second opinion from a private dentist as well. The last few days my lower right tooth has been really irritating the gum around it that I&#x27;ve been taking ibuprofen for two or three days.<p>If I went to the dentist when these originally started to emerge instead of waiting until they started to cause some discomfort I could have had them removed with much less risk. I was however under the assumption that wisdom teeth should only be removed when they cause problems, which for the first few years mine didn&#x27;t really.