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Have you lost all your baby teeth yet? 🦷️
Ryan Scarpelli (USA) was so young when he had his wisdom tooth removed that he still had some of his baby teeth left!
Aged 9 years 327 days, Ryan officially became the youngest person to have a wisdom tooth extracted.
What is a wisdom tooth?
Wisdom teeth, also known as third molars, usually grow in a person’s mouth when they are aged 17-25. Wisdom teeth are positioned at the back of each corner of the mouth, behind the other molars (molars are the large, flat teeth used for chewing).
Nine is a very young age to grow a wisdom tooth. In fact, it happens so rarely that Ryan broke a 20-year-old record!
The previous record holder was Matthew Adams (USA), who had two wisdom teeth removed in 2002, aged 9 years 339 days.
Ryan’s wisdom tooth was first noticed in April 2021 by his orthodontist, who did a 3D x-ray of Ryan’s mouth and saw that a wisdom tooth and molar were growing on top of each other. 🦷️🦷️
"I was shocked," Ryan said. "I could not feel it at all." 😲
“My orthodontist said it needed to be removed so that the molar could drop properly."
Ryan was sent to a specialist surgeon, Dr Vigilante, who confirmed that the wisdom tooth had to be removed.
On 27 July 2021, Ryan sat down in Dr Vigilante’s chair to undergo his record-breaking operation.
"I felt very scared because I did not know if it was going to hurt or what it would feel like once they removed it," Ryan said. 😱
Although Ryan didn’t feel any pain during the operation, he definitely did afterwards. 🤕
"I felt like I got punched super hard in my mouth," he said.
Over the following days, Ryan could only eat soft foods and liquids, such as milkshakes, jello, yoghurt and apple sauce. 🍨
The good news was that Ryan got to keep his tooth!
"They must have given it to me while I was still asleep because I could not find it but then the next day, I found it in my pocket," he recalled.
"It was scary, but it really wasn’t that bad. And before I knew it, my mouth was back to normal." – Ryan Scarpelli
After Ryan had his tooth removed, his mother, Shelly Scarpelli, realized that Ryan may have broken a world record. 😃
"I did some research and learned that the youngest person on record was 9 years and 339 days," Shelly said.
When she calculated Ryan’s exact age at the time of his operation, Shelly discovered that Ryan had broken the record!
After receiving his Guinness World Records title, Ryan said, "it feels really good and makes me proud."
Ryan isn’t the only person with a record-breaking wisdom tooth though - the oldest person to grow a wisdom tooth was Robert W. Gray (USA), who was 94 years 253 days old when a new wisdom tooth was discovered in his mouth by a dentist on 23 August 2017.