impacted wisdom teeth / wisdom tooth extractions

When is the best time to get your wisdom teeth taken out?

Evaluating the number of web searches for the terms 'wisdom teeth' and 'dry sockets' is revealing.

It seems probable that most people have their wisdom teeth removed during their summer vacation.

This only makes sense since most third molar extractions are performed for people between the ages of 18 and 24 years (find out why), a group whose schedule is often closely coordinated with the school calendar.

And as might be expected, after summer vacation, the next most popular times for scheduling wisdom tooth extractions seem to be winter and then spring break.

Our 'wisdom teeth' graph makes a pretty good case for this claim.

For evidence of this theory, take a look at our graph. The 5 years of data we evaluated (2004 - 2009) seems to demonstrate that web search volume for the term 'wisdom teeth' spikes at times corresponding with school-term breaks.

Of course there could be other explanations for or influences on this apparent phenomenon. But as we stated previously, considering the typical age of people having third molar extractions, the fact that a great many of these people are school students, and the expectation that most people perform web searches about activities they are planning or are involved with, we think our theory holds water.

Our 'dry socket' graph seems to confirm our 'wisdom teeth' findings.

For further evidence, take a look at the graph below. We evaluated the same type of data for the search term 'dry socket.' And when plotted, it seems to demonstrate that web search traffic related to the term 'dry socket' peaks in mid to late summer.

Now, experiencing a 'dry socket' can be an unfortunate post-operative complication associated with any type of tooth extraction. They are, however, more likely to be experienced in association with the removal of wisdom teeth, especially lower wisdom teeth. And we see little reason to expect that people would be searching for the term 'dry socket' unless they had one, or were treating someone who did.

Our comments about our graphs.

While we believe our graphs to be credible, we won't pretend that our data has undergone rigorous statistical analysis. And for that reason, we should probably state that our graphs are just a curiosity, not a hard fact.

Our comments about the keyword data we evaluated.

The data we have graphed was collected and formatted as follows. We evaluated Google search data, on a per-year basis, for the keywords 'wisdom teeth' and also 'dry socket' for the years 2004 - 2009. For each year, that month that had the highest search volume was normalized to a value of 100, with a corresponding adjustment made to the value of each of the lesser months. We then combined the data (with all years receiving equal weighting) and again normalized the month with the highest value to 100 and calculated the relative value for the lesser months.