Is It Possible To Keep Wisdom Teeth

People love to give advice before you go nether the knife, especially if they've gone through it themselves.

So it was no surprise that I got all kinds of it before having all four wisdom teeth removed final Tuesday. Most of it was standard-event stuff: "relax," "don't employ a harbinger," or "eat soup."

Ane comment stood out.

"Ask them why y'all can't take your teeth," said my dominate, Jacqueline Palfy Klemond.

Obviously, Palfy Klemond "got a lilliputian belligerent" when she was told she wouldn't be allowed to take her wisdom teeth dwelling with her after a similar process virtually a decade ago.

Sure enough, the good people at Siouxland Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery told me the same matter last calendar week. My teeth, one time extracted, are considered "medical waste matter." So no, I wouldn't be taking them abode.

I didn't even want my wisdom teeth, but the boss' question got me curious.

What are the rules about "medical waste?" Who decides whether I get to take home a piece of myself removed past a doc or dentist? Is there a law that says I can't accept my teeth? What about my gall float or my tonsils?

What near the placenta? I've never completely understood the desire to proceed the placenta after the blest result, but I get that it'due south a affair people like to do.

As it turns out, there'south no constabulary that says a dentist or dental surgeon can't give you your teeth back. It'southward more like a strong suggestion. The Centers for Disease Control'south "Guidelines for Infection Command in Dental Health-Care Settings" says extracted teeth are considered "potentially infectious material" that ought to be disposed of in medical waste containers.

Teeth with amalgams (fillings) demand to be incinerated carefully, every bit the incineration can produce mercury fumes.

Even then, the same certificate says information technology's okay to give the patient dorsum their teeth, and that the rules for disposal don't employ after the mitt-off.

"… extracted teeth can exist returned to patients on request," the document says.

So there's no federal law that says you tin can't have your teeth back. What about state laws? That'due south non applicative, either, according to Brittany Novotny, director of the South Dakota Board of Dentistry.

"Nosotros don't accept annihilation at the country level requiring them to dispose of them equally medical waste," Novotny said.

Yet, most offices practise dispose of extracted teeth equally medical waste, she said.

What about the rest of your body? Do you have a right to your gall bladder, for example? Again, a gall bladder is not an item I'd desire to have on my shelf, but people are costless to have their own ideas about interior décor.

Y'all tin't take your gall bladder home, though. Not any more than. Dr. Mike Wilde, the chief medical officer for Sanford Health, said rules in place for medical waste matter since 1991 only permit patients to take home ii things: Teeth and placentas.

Everything else plucked, pulled or cut from your body is disposed of through a contractor.

"If you retrieve about it, the main issues are public wellness, employee safety and infection command," Wilde said. "We have policies in place in terms of what nosotros practice with these surgical specimens, which we run into on a daily basis."

If parents desire to take home the placenta, Wilde said, the detail is packaged in ii separate and sterilized containers, neither of which is identifiable to the casual observer.

"It's not going to be obvious to anyone what'due south coming out of here," Wilde said.

So there y'all have it: You can take your teeth, simply merely if the dentist or surgeon lets you take them. You can't have anything else, unless it's a placenta.

At present you know, so there'due south no need to go belligerent.

John Hult is the Reader's Watchdog reporter for Argus Leader Media. Contact him with questions and concerns at 605-331-2301, 605-370-8617. Yous tin can tweet him @ArgusJHult or observe him on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/ArgusReadersWatchdog