Wisdom teeth removal in Medellín

Wisdom teeth removal in Medellín, $280,000 to $380,000 COP per tooth, done by an oral and maxillofacial surgeon.

In the United States the national average is around USD $615 per tooth, with a usual range of $400 to $1,055 — and that is before sedation, which is billed separately. Four wisdom teeth there is commonly a four-figure decision.

Wisdom teeth removal is a trip that starts and finishes

Most dental work worth travelling for has a laboratory in the middle of it. Crowns and porcelain veneers mean days of waiting, and sometimes a second flight months later.

Wisdom teeth removal does not. You arrive, you are assessed, they come out, you recover, you go home. There is nothing left pending and nothing to come back for. Of everything on this site it is the treatment that fits a single trip most cleanly, which is why it is worth considering even if you had not thought of it as something you would travel for.

Who does wisdom teeth removal, and why that matters

An impacted wisdom tooth is not a difficult extraction. It is a surgical procedure that happens to involve a tooth: the tooth sits in bone, often lying on its side, sometimes against the nerve that supplies the lower lip.

A general dentist can remove a straightforward one. Wisdom teeth removal becomes surgery when they are not straightforward, and those are the reason this page exists.

How it goes

Before anything is decided

A panoramic X-ray, and an examination. The X-ray is what shows how the teeth are lying, how much bone is over them and how close the roots sit to the nerve — none of which can be judged by looking in your mouth.

If you already have a recent panoramic X-ray, send it before you fly. We can tell you from it roughly what you are dealing with and what it is likely to cost, and we will tell you that it is preliminary.

Not every wisdom tooth has to come out

A wisdom tooth that is fully through, in a reasonable position, cleanable and causing no trouble is a tooth. It does not need removing because it is a wisdom tooth.

If the X-ray shows that two of your four wisdom teeth are fine, we will tell you that two of your four are fine. It is a smaller invoice and the right answer, and those are the same thing here more often than people expect.

Does wisdom teeth removal hurt

The surgery itself does not: it is done under local anaesthetic and you will feel pressure rather than pain. What people are really asking about is the days afterwards, and those are managed with ordinary painkillers and ice, with the worst of the swelling around the second day.

If being awake for it is the part you cannot face — and for a lot of people it is — it can be done under sedation, administered by a specialised medical team that includes an anaesthetist, not by the surgeon working on the teeth. Sedation starts at $900,000 COP for an appointment of up to an hour, and is quoted by time beyond that, and it is explained here.

Flying home

This is the question that decides whether your trip is four days or eight, and almost nobody answers it with a number.

Plan to stay at least five days after wisdom teeth surgery. That is when the review appointment happens, and it is the window in which anything that is going to need looking at will show itself. Cabin pressure and a fresh extraction socket are also not a good combination.

The review and the suture removal are included — not an extra visit and not an extra charge. Book the flight home after it, not before.

What wisdom teeth removal costs

	COP
Wisdom tooth removal, per tooth	$280,000 – $380,000
Four wisdom teeth	$1,120,000 – $1,520,000
Sedation, added	from $900,000
Panoramic X-ray	from $62,500
Review and suture removal	included

Prices are in Colombian pesos. We quote in pesos because the exchange rate moves — you can check today’s rate. The four-tooth figure is the per-tooth price four times over, not a package, and it is the ceiling rather than the expectation — plenty of people need two out rather than four. Where you land inside the range depends on how the tooth is lying, which is what the X-ray is for.

Other extractions and oral surgery

Wisdom teeth are what most people come for, but they are not all of it — and here is something unusual about the way we price it.

	COP
Any extraction, per tooth, simple or surgical	$280,000 – $380,000

Any extraction costs the same here, whichever tooth it is and however difficult it turns out to be. A straightforward one and a surgical one sit in the same range, so nobody has an incentive to describe your case as more complicated than it is.

Bone grafting and sinus lifts are done for a different purpose — preparing a site so an implant can go in — so they live with dental implants rather than here.

And if the tooth in question is one you were hoping to keep, taking it out is not automatically the answer. Root canal treatment saves teeth that look lost, and a tooth can be rebuilt when there is enough of it left. The honest version of that conversation happens at the examination.

Before you book flights

Send us your panoramic X-ray if you have one, your age, and whether anything is currently hurting. We will come back with what we think you are looking at, what it is likely to cost, and how many days you should allow.

You can write in English and you will be answered in English, by the clinic. More about the people who work here.