Decayed wisdom teeth?!

Decayed wisdom teeth?

I was at the dentist today, I hadn't been in a while, maybe 2 years or so, but I just went for a check up, I didn't have any toothache or anything.

Anyway, he found a cavity in one of my molars which I'm going to get a filling in next week, but he says that my top two wisdom teeth and one on the bottom are really badly decayed and will need to be extracted. He showed me on the x-ray and they looked really bad, it was as though there was hardly anything left inside the tooth at all. But when I look at the teeth in the mirror there's hardly anything to see, they don't have huge holes in them or anything like that and they don't hurt.

How come they are so badly decayed inside but they look OK on the outside? And if they're so badly decayed, why aren't they hurting? I'm just kinda confused because I thought when you had really bad cavities it was obvious and it would really hurt!!

I'm no expert, but I know from personal experience that cavities I've had which have looked really small on the outside of my tooth, when the dentist has started drilling them they end up being a LOT bigger than they seemed. My dentist told me it was because once the decay got through the enamel, which might be through a TINY hole that you can hardly even see, when it's got to the inside of your tooth it's much softer and it decays much more easily. So even though the cavity might still be very small on the outside, on the inside it can have spread really far.

As for why they don't hurt, I don't know - but trust me you should be glad they don't! Toothache is the WORST, and I should know, my teeth are full of fillings and I'm probably going to need another root canal next week (I already had to have 2). So just get them pulled before they start to hurt!!