Healthy Teeth: How Many Teeth Should Adults Have?
Learn how many teeth adults should have in this dental care video. Expert: Shane Methal, DDS
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Transcript
Hi, my name is Dr. Shane Methal, here at Greene Street Dental in SoHo, New York. I've been in private practice both in Maryland and consequently back in New York for the last 17 years. My office website is www.greenestreetdental.com, that's green with an "e" at the end, and today I'm going to be talking about teeth and dentistry. Healthy Teeth: How many teeth should adults have? By age two, we should have approximately 20 primary teeth. As we get older, these teeth shed and an adult human should have 32 teeth. Most people, however, have their wisdom teeth extracted and as a result end up with 28 teeth. Sometime teeth are also removed for orthodontic purposes or for braces. If you have too many teeth, this can cause problems with esthetics or crowding. If you have too few teeth, the spacing can cause teeth to drift or tilt and that can also cause problems with your bite. In that case you have to talk to your dentist about filling those spaces with implants, partial dentures or bridges.
