Hyperdontia: Symptoms, Causes, Treatment, and More

ALPHARETTA, GA – Have you been told your child suffers from hyperdontia? This condition, which results in supernumerary or extra teeth, affects between one and four percent of the population. It is typically found in a higher number of males than females.

While years of research have presented no definitive answer as to the cause of hyperdontia, there are several theories. Some experts believe it may simply be the result of environmental factors, while others blame a genetic predisposition. Still, others think it is connected to disorders such as Gardner’s Syndrome or Cleidocranial Dysostosis. People who suffer from these disorders can have multiple extra teeth grow.

What Is Hyperdontia, and What Causes It?

Although hyperdontia is more common in adults, symptoms can appear when children begin to lose their baby teeth. An extra tooth might develop from a separate tooth bud, or a permanent tooth bud can split, causing two teeth instead of one.

These extra teeth can grow anywhere inside the mouth-not just in the gum line. These supernumerary teeth can appear between permanent teeth, behind or in front of permanent teeth, or even along the roof of the mouth.

The extra teeth fall into four classifications based on their structure. Conical, tuberculate, supplemental, and odontoma indicate both their structure and location in the mouth. The teeth typically grow in one of three shapes; peg, tubercle, or cusp.

Is Hyperdontia Dangerous?

In most cases, Hyperdontia is not dangerous, especially for children. As a fact, hyperdontia in children often passes inadvertently because, in normal conditions, a kid has twenty baby teeth that will eventually fall. Compared with adult teeth that comprise 32 dental pieces, extra teeth in children usually erupt aligned with the rest of the teeth.

Can a child live with hyperdontia? The answer depends heavily on the particularities of each case, like the position of the tooth or teeth. In most circumstances, your kid might not need treatment. However, hyperdontia has a more significant impact on teens and adults and might affect a patient’s natural and everyday habits and well-being.

Issues That Cause Functional Anomalies

Hyperdontia might cause functional anomalies triggering symptomatologies that require a clinical approach to remove supernumerary teeth. These functional anomalies include:

Blocks Other Teeth from Erupting

Extra teeth might get in the way of adult teeth or other baby teeth that are trying to come up, causing teeth to remain below the gums or to erupt partially and at odd angles.

Causes Teeth Misalignments

Supernumerary teeth might not prevent other teeth from erupting, but they might leave little room for erupting teeth, pushing them out of their position and causing overcrowding.

Damage Other Teeth Roots

Extra teeth that remain impacted in the jawbone might apply unnecessary strain on erupted teeth roots. This condition might be detrimental to the survival of the erupted teeth because it sits on the impacted tooth, causing resorption of its roots, which eventually disappear.

Causes For Extra Teeth Extractions

Functional anomalies might require preventive action to avoid further problems, such as infections or damage to other teeth or adjacent soft tissue. Some of the reasons for extraction include the following:

Genetics

Patients that have a genetic propensity to develop additional teeth might require extractions to limit having too many extra teeth causing problems.

Problems at Biting

In some cases, patients with extra teeth might experience difficulties chewing foods. In addition, extra teeth might not have teeth in the opposite arch to produce occlusion, or the extra teeth have an imperfect bite causing discomfort at the bite or cutting the cheeks.

Pain From Overcrowding

Patients might experience sudden pain due to overcrowding on the teeth arches that can irradiate adjacent areas and produce inflamed gums.

Oral Health Issues

Maintaining good oral health requires patients to practice good oral hygiene habits. However, extra teeth might erupt, having odd shapes and angles or getting in the way of other teeth during customary brushing and flossing routines.

Difficulties in accessing the toothbrushes or the flossing thread might end up in insufficient cleaning, increasing calculus and bacterial proliferation on the extra tooth and the adjacent compromised teeth. Calculus accumulation might produce tooth decay that could spread to the surrounding teeth and might also attack the gums borderline, causing periodontitis.

Self-Consciousness and Embarrassment

Distomolar or teeth located in line with other molars might produce unaesthetic overcrowding. Also, the mesiodens tooth growing behind the incisors becomes visible when opening the mouth. This often causes an uncomfortable sensation of social disapproval in patients that recurs to hide their condition by avoiding opening their mouths.

Is Hyperdontia Hurtful?

Fortunately, hyperdontia is not painful and will not cause serious problems. Your kid might still have pressure and sometimes swelling on their jaw due to the extra teeth in the mouth, jaw, and gums.

Hyperdontia in Children

Boys have a higher chance of developing permanent supernumerary teeth that don’t fall out with baby teeth. It is often noticed by parents when children are toddlers.

Studies have shown that some childhood conditions and diseases might also have higher possibilities of developing hyperdontia, such as Ehlers-Danlos syndromes, Gardner’s syndrome, Cleidocranial dysplasia, Down syndrome, cleft lip, and cleft palate.

There is not enough data on what causes hyperdontia, but there is an indication that the disruption or stimulation of the cells in the jawline might be related, as well to the abnormal division of tooth buds and genetics where children might inherit it.

What Happens If Hyperdontia Is Left Untreated?

A dentist who specializes in pediatric dentistry will be the best choice to assist your child if you notice an abnormal growth pattern.

“Hyperdontia does not go away on its own, so treatment will be necessary to correct it,” says children’s dentist Dr. Nanna Ariaban. “In rare cases, if left too long, the supernumerary teeth can fuse to permanent teeth, making it necessary for surgery to detach them.”

In other cases, the teeth remain impacted, failing to erupt. These teeth can block permanent teeth from erupting, can displace permanent teeth, cause crowding, or form cysts in the mouth. Hyperdontia can lead to problems if and when children decide to get braces. A consultation with a Johns Creek pediatric dentist will involve X-rays, which can show the position of any extra teeth.

How Do You Treat Hyperdontia?

Many parents are concerned about the effects of hyperdontia on their children and want to know what can be done to treat it.

According to our Alpharetta pediatric dentist, Dr. Nanna Ariaban, extra teeth can be extracted, but they should only be taken out if they pose a danger to the child. Having an extra tooth is totally okay as long as it isn’t a health risk.

“Typically, I will recommend extracting the teeth before they cause any damage,” says Dr. Ariaban. “Extraction depends on the location of the extra tooth and its relation to the other teeth.

If we don’t foresee any problems from the extra tooth, it is sometimes possible to leave it, as long as we are certain no problems will arise in the future.” It’s important to begin your child’s relationship with a dentist by the age of one. This way, his mouth can be monitored, and problems can be addressed as they arise. If issues are left too long, they can create more damage than they might otherwise have.

When Should My Kid Infant Start Teething?

The appearance of primary teeth varies significantly in range. At first, parents might start noticing their newborns having two and up to three months of age biting on almost anything they can. This behavior should not raise a concern regarding newborn teething, and it does not necessarily mean a baby is having their first teeth erupted.

Indicators of an infant teething include, in some cases, discomfort, puffy gums, and mild fever. These symptomatologies might be present near the sixth month of age when the first lower dental arch central incisors start to erupt. The upper central incisor eruption occurs between the eighth and the twelfth month.

Your kid’s teething progression continues with the lateral incisors that start erupting roughly between the ninth and the sixteenth month of age. Subsequent eruptions of primary teeth include the first molars in both arches that come up between months thirteenth and nineteenth.

Canines erupt around the last half of the second year of age. This is between the seventeenth and the twentieth second month. Finally, the last set of functional teeth erupting is the second molars that might appear on your kid’s second birthday but might have a delay appearing up until the thirty-third month of age.

Tips for Teething Kids

A useful piece of advice you can put into practice when noticing your infant is having discomfort or pain from teething is to use the index finger and gently massage the gums making circular movements. You might find at baby stores an infant baby-designed product for this purpose, which is a firm but not hard rubber ring.

This ring is big enough to pass the gums, preventing choking. However, we encourage parents to remain vigilant of a potentially happening choking event. Also, please avoid giving your little infant teething bracelets, necklaces, or any other jewelry. Refrain from using teething creams and gels, especially those containing benzocaine, as they could cause a reduction of the blood cells retention of red blood cells.

From a preventive care perspective, parents must be vigilant on many aspects of a newborn (day one to third month), infancy (third month to first year), and toddler (year one to year three), developmental phases, to where all baby teeth eruption completes.

For instance, parents must observe habits and correlate them with the baby’s staged development to avoid becoming problematic in the future. Here we briefly mention some habits parents must identify and correct on time:

Thumb and Pacifier Sucking

Thumb sucking is a naturally occurring reflex in humans that, in many cases, start in the mummy’s womb. Thumb sucking is a self-soothing mechanism to cope with stressful situations or when the baby is hungry or tired.

Parents might also use a pacifier to help their baby calm in the first months of age but no longer than the second year of age. Thumb sucking and pacifier usage might produce mild but constant pressure on the roof of the mouth, forming a lever-type of strain against the upper incisors.

The constant strain might produce a protrusion called an open bite, where the front upper teeth significantly overlap the lower teeth preventing them from touching each other at the bite.

Tongue Thrusting

Toddlers might push their tongue against the roof of the mouth area with a forward movement toward the upper front teeth, lateral incisors, and canines, which could eventually push their teeth, producing possible misalignment typologies depending on the recurrent positioning of the tongue that includes crossbite, or open bite protrusions.

At Polkadot Dentistry for Kids, Your Little Kid Extra Teeth Has Extra Tooth Fairy Surprises

Having extra teeth in a kid’s mouth might be frightening for parents. But yet, most cases bring no complications, though they require professional monitoring to define the causes and possible actions to prevent the development of oral health-related issues that require to be promptly addressed.

Observe all these educating ideas and relate them to your kid’s teeth’ developmental stages. Ask for information and schedule an appointment at Polkadot Pediatric Dentistry with Dr. Ariaban that is a Board Certified Pediatric Dental Specialist. Dr. Ariaban is committed to giving your kids those big smiles!

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