Not every tooth can be saved. Where one is beyond restoring, or an impacted wisdom tooth is pushing into its neighbour and causing repeated infection, removing it is the treatment.
A straightforward extraction is quick and done under local anaesthesia. An impacted tooth, most often a lower wisdom tooth lying sideways under the gum, is a surgical procedure and takes longer. The principle is the same either way: get it out with as little disturbance to the surrounding bone as possible, because that bone is what heals afterwards.
You leave with clear aftercare instructions, written down rather than said once, and a number to call. Most of the trouble people have after an extraction starts in the first twenty four hours, and most of it is avoidable.
Where a tooth can be saved, we would rather save it. Extraction is what we recommend when the alternatives genuinely do not hold up, and we will explain why in plain terms.
