Is it bottom or top wisdom? Having an upper wisdom tooth removed is usually much more straight forward. when I had my partially erupted upper wisdom tooth removed it took seconds to come out with local anesthetic and was a huge relief to have out, My lower wisdom was harder to remove and took 45 mins, was quite traumatic under a local anesthetic. i think they can see a lot from x ray and probably would'nt recommend removing it if it was going to be too hard to remove and cause damage to nerves etc. If the tooth is partially erupted it makes their job a lot easier too.. Good luck.

Thanks for the reply. It's a bottom wisdom tooth, and I just had it looked at today. From looking at the x-ray, the surgeon said that the root is sitting right on the nerve. Surgery is going to be complicated (and I'm over 30), so I'm not sure if I want to go through with this. Then again I might not have a choice.

I need advice. Anyone know of any practical alternatives to extraction?