Without exception, every human being will have two sets of teeth — deciduous and permanent teeth, in their lifetime. The role of deciduous teeth to permanent ones is similar to a “guide”, drawing them to erupt in a right position and direction and thus completing the replacement of permanent dentition to deciduous one. During the mixed dentition, however, usually there are two common situations shown as follows. 

    One is that permanent teeth fail to see timely eruption after the falling out of their deciduous counterparts. Various causes like dental caries, accidental trauma or congenital factors can result in early loss of deciduous teeth. Regardless of the causes, a thorough check-up should be sought to find out whether or not there is permanent tooth germ beneath. Should there is a long period before dental replacement, it’s a space retainer that should be sought to maintain the space. 

    The other one is that deciduous teeth still remain after the eruption of their permanent counterparts. In such cases there will be a development of two-row teeth, termed as the retention of deciduous teeth. It’s necessary to extract the retained deciduous teeth, enabling their erupted permanent counterparts to automatically grow back where they supposed to be. That is not going to happen without the removal of retained ones, meaning that you may require orthodontics afterwards. 

    Is the extraction of retained deciduous teeth a guarantee for the growing back of their permanent replacements? How long will it take? 

    According to dentists from AKJ Dental Hospital, it’s not a guarantee. Generally speaking, the permanent teeth are supposed to grow back to its right positions after the extraction, but whether the extraction is conducted in time and the basic dental condition of patients will also cast an impact.

    With an extraction conducted in time, when permanent teeth just start to erupt and aren’t stabilized yet, it will much easier for their shifting to happen. Under such circumstances you don’t need to worry a lot. No extra measures but observation are needed. With a delay extraction, however, the shifting will be harder to see. No doubt, it would be glad to see an automatic shifting of permanent teeth. If no, you need to run a check-up after completing the dental replacement to see whether braces are needed or not. As for how long it will take, it also varies from case to case, maybe half an year, maybe one or two years, or even longer.

    When there is a sign of loose deciduous teeth, you don’t need to seek an extraction from a hospital. Instead, you can try to promote their natural shedding by changing your daily diets. For instance, eat some comparatively hard foods like carrots, corns and ribs.     

    Please feel free to contact me if there’s any dental problem. (WeChat ID: aiyuan325180)