Why is it important to have your teeth in order for surgery?

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I had gallbladder surgery last year and I have an upcoming one this year for my thyroid but I was wondering, why is it that they ask about dental stuff. Why is it important for surgery? What happens to people who have emergency situations and have like bad teeth or something? Just curious.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Anesthesiologist here.

It’s so we can avoid damaging teeth when placing a breathing tube. The state of the teeth is really irrelevant to us doing the case. We just care that we know the baseline and can document it and then avoid making it worse. An accidentally dislodged tooth can easily go into the airway.

For some surgeries where they implant foreign hardware (like heart valves or hips) they want teeth that are infected to be pulled to avoid infection spreading to that hard to remove implant.

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