Summertime is prime time for oral surgeons, seeing a steady stream of young people, ages 17 to 25, to remove wisdom teeth, the final set of molars that many of us get and some have great difficulty removing.

I'm sure the mere mention of wisdom teeth brings back memories for many, usually horror stories of impacted teeth, wacky behavior after being under anesthesia or the dreaded infection or dry sockets.

Give you the shivers recalling it? Sorry. I flashed back a little as well.

My youngest daughter, Madison, had hers removed earlier this week and I accompanied her to the oral surgeon. The job of the parent is simple: take your child to the appointment, surrender a great deal of money and wait for your child to come out of surgery. After coaxing your child back to full consciousness and hearing the instructions for care, you bring your child home and try to make them comfortable.

In doing some research for this column, I learned that wisdom teeth are an evolutionary throwback. Back in the days before processed food, eating was much harder on your teeth than it is today. Eating meat and raw vegetables was hard on your teeth, and by the age of "wisdom," between 17 and 25, you would have lost enough teeth through normal wear and tear, that your remaining teeth would have shifted to allow room for the last four molars to come in, just in time to replace some of your "worn out" teeth.

I find it fascinating that our bodies were made to be ready for this eventuality, having redundant systems in place to make sure we didn't starve to death.

Times have changed, and we have a softer diet. That, along with many advances in dental care have resulted in wisdom teeth becoming an issue that increasingly needs to be dealt with by oral surgeons.

I recall my parents both had, or were well on their way to dentures when they were my age. I still have nearly all of my teeth although many are not original equipment anymore. I received many of the Stangl genetics: male pattern baldness, flat feet and bad teeth. Being one of six children, we did not receive novocaine when our teeth were filled. I have many unpleasant memories of the dentist's office.

I was quite relieved when both of my children inherited their mother's excellent teeth. Both needed to have braces, which I learned during research for this column, have helped to make wisdom teeth more problematic to deal with. According to the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS), the popularity of orthodontic tooth straightening procedures produces a fuller dental arch, which quite commonly doesn't leave room for the wisdom teeth to erupt, thereby setting the stage for problems when the final four molars enter the mouth.

The lack of available real estate for the new teeth causes them to either become impacted when there is a lack of space in the mouth and the growth of the wisdom tooth and eventual eruption are prevented by overlying gum, bone or another tooth. Sometimes, it's no big deal, a dentist can pull the tooth, like they would any other, other times it's a big deal and the oral surgeon is called upon to remove the teeth.

That was the case with both of my children. I was fortunate enough to have my teeth erupt (don't you love that term, like a volcano forms a new land mass in your mouth) and be removed by a regular dentist. I did, however, get the dreaded double whammy -- an infection and a dry socket.

Not fun.

So, for a while, Madison is off work, on a soft diet (a great excuse for having ice cream) and her straightened teeth (which had shifted when the interloper teeth had tried to make their entrance) will hopefully shift their way back to where they were before.

In Norse mythology, the great god Odin wanted to drink deeply from the well of wisdom. He did, and as the cost of acquiring wisdom, he left one of his eyes.

Sort of puts having some teeth pulled in perspective.

As always, I welcome your comments. You can reach me by email at tstangl@lemarscomm.net, telephone 712-546-7031, x40 or toll free 1-800-728-0066 x40.

Thanks for reading, I'll keep in touch. Feel free to do the same.