I have to have my wisdom tooth pulled out :(

[buddhu]

I haven't been to a dentist in nearly 30 years.

Wow I thought I was bad (pushing 10 years for me). It's not fear that's kept me away though, just a mix of laziness and a chronic shortage of the effin dentists in the first place. It's impossible to get on the books of a NHS dentist up here.

That's a very good point.

I am far luckier than I deserve. I only ever had about six cavities filled, and I don't remember having had any extractions. My teeth are strong and give me no trouble.

I am grateful for this.

[Flyingcursor]

19 or 20 I believe. All four at once. It's one of those cases where the anticipation far exceeds the event.

[norcalbob]

I had my first two wisdom teeth extracted by a butcher just a few weeks before I was discharged from the service in 1969. It was a horrible experience; I looked like I had a softball implanted in my right cheek, and the pain was awful. I wouldn't let them take the other ones out after that.

Of course, about 10 years later the wisdoms on my left needed to come out. This time I had a great oral surgeon who put me into the 'who-cares-twilight- zone' with some great anesthesia. Surprisingly, when I went in for the surgery, they told me they would be taking 3 teeth out, and I said that was impossible because I already had 2 taken out 10 years before. But, as it turns out, I had 2 on the bottom left where there is normally only one. Lucky me, I had a total of 5 wisdom teeth that were eventually all extracted!

The funny part of the story is that my girlfriend at the time, my wife now, had to pick me up after the surgery because I was loopy from the anesthesia. She drove me to my over to my office so I could pick up a few things. Well, she happens to get very queasy at the sight of blood, and I guess I had some dried blood on my lips and my mouth was packed with gauze. I guess I had also been rambling about my surgery experience.

So, when she parked the car in front of my office, she looked over at me and promptly fainted face first into my lap. I was loopy and was trying to prop her back up while people watching us from the sidewalk weren't sure what was going on!

When she came to enough to sit up, I went into my office and got a co-worker to drive us both home. She was lying in the back seat, and I was slumped in the passenger seat still in la-la-land.

[Innocent Bystander]

Warning! Post contains unpleasantness!

When I was 21 I was baking my own bread as a regular thing, and using wholemeal flour with wheat-berries. In other words, it had whole grains of wheat in amongst the flour. Now, flour has a long shelf-life, and not a lot of people in Edinburgh use wholmeal bread flour with wheat-berries, so the stuff I was using, was old, in terms of shelf-life, and the wheat had dried out. What I should have done was to sieve the flour, and soak the wheat grains. Or at least, remove them. But I was 21 and knew no better. Those whole-grains were lethal. Literally lethal, as far as my teeth were concerned. One day I bit down hard on a wheat-berry that was like a stone, and cracked one of my wisdom teeth. It didn't hurt, but there was clearly something wrong.

I went to the dentist. He said "It has to come out". I made an appointment, for a few days later, and the dentist gave me a local anaesthetic and picked the pieces of tooth out of my gum. Painless. Wonderful. He said "Those other wisdom teeth will have to come out too, but they aren't even through yet, so we'll leave that for a while."

So about a year later, he said "Time for those other wisdom teeth to come out. They're pushing your other teeth along, and I bet you can feel it." I could. I was happy for them to go.

Boy, did I get a shock! It wasn't the repeats of anaesthetic that were so nasty, but I'll swear the dentist put his knee (if not his foot) against my chin to get a better purchase for pulling the things out. They did not want to come. It took ages. It was painful. Wisdom teeth have long roots and are difficult. I felt like I had been under a Gestapo interrogation after the end of that. Bruised mouth, aching jaw. I don't recollect the blood, but I wouldn't recollect that. I was on soups and stews and porridge for a couple of days. But that was all.

[monkey587]

I had 6 wisdom teeth removed in August... I was asleep and it didn't hurt. In fact, I felt fine that day. The next 3-4 days hurt a lot and then it got better.

[I.D.10-t]

I had min pulled for free while I was in the military. Had to have one of my coworkers there to make sure I didn't talk about anything important (not that I knew anything important). He was happy to get the day off. The dentist/oral surgeon/whatever yanked all four while I was knocked out. It was a Friday morning and were kind enough to give me a "NO P.T." profile for three days so I wouldn't have to do push ups, setups and a three mile run until Monday (not that I would have had to). For the first week my jaw was so sore that I couldn't open it more than a quarter of an inch. I had to cut all of the mess hall food as thin as a dime and chewed more with my tongue than with my teeth. I would have tried the soft serve machine (which seemed to be the way that the mess hall got rid of the almost-expired-slightly-sour-milk) to make a milk shake but I was told that sucking through a straw was a bad idea. Over all the recovery was quick, and even the Monday morning PT wasn't bad except for being a bit hungry.

[monkey587]

I had min pulled for free while I was in the military. Had to have one of my coworkers there to make sure I didn't talk about anything important (not that I knew anything important). He was happy to get the day off. The dentist/oral surgeon/whatever yanked all four while I was knocked out. It was a Friday morning and were kind enough to give me a "NO P.T." profile for three days so I wouldn't have to do push ups, setups and a three mile run until Monday (not that I would have had to). For the first week my jaw was so sore that I couldn't open it more than a quarter of an inch. I had to cut all of the mess hall food as thin as a dime and chewed more with my tongue than with my teeth. I would have tried the soft serve machine (which seemed to be the way that the mess hall got rid of the almost-expired-slightly-sour-milk) to make a milk shake but I was told that sucking through a straw was a bad idea. Over all the recovery was quick, and even the Monday morning PT wasn't bad except for being a bit hungry.

I experienced something similar. 6 days after the surgery, I attempted to eat diced peaches, and even those I had to cut in half to fit between my jaws. Fortunately, when I had my 1-week checkup, my masters-of-the-universe-esque surgeon grabbed my head and wrenched my jaw open, and after repeating said treatment several times, I was able to eat real food again. Mmm, panir tikka masala....

[Redwolf]

I didn't have much trouble, even when I got a dry socket when one of my lowers was removed. The main thing is that you really want follow the post-operative instructions, and be sure to contact your dentist right away if you have any problems. There's a lot they can do these days to control the pain.

Playing whistle shouldn't be problem, I wouldn't think. What they will have you avoid for a while is anything that creates suction, such as sucking on a straw or smoking.

Are you having a general anesthesia? If you can afford it (or if your insurance will pay for it) it's a lot easier on your system...as others have said, wisdom teeth have big roots.

Redwolf

[Bothrops]

I didn't have much trouble, even when I got a dry socket when one of my lowers was removed. The main thing is that you really want follow the post-operative instructions, and be sure to contact your dentist right away if you have any problems. There's a lot they can do these days to control the pain.

Playing whistle shouldn't be problem, I wouldn't think. What they will have you avoid for a while is anything that creates suction, such as sucking on a straw or smoking.

Are you having a general anesthesia? If you can afford it (or if your insurance will pay for it) it's a lot easier on your system...as others have said, wisdom teeth have big roots.

Redwolf

When my dentist was trying to repair the cavity on my wisdom tooth and he realized that it was very deep he told me: "It's so deep, it'd be better to pull out. Do you want it to remove it?", I told him: "Noooo!!!".
He wanted to pull out in the moment. I didn't let him.
The tooth is totally emerged, not hidden inside the gum, so I don't know if it would be easier to pull out because of that.
I don't think that here in Argentina it's common to use general anesthesia for a tooth removal.
My dentist gave me a local anesthesia (quite painful) and was hurting a lot while he was working on the cavities, so, that's the main reason because I'm very scared about that extraction. If cleaning a cavity was hurting me, I don't want to imagine a tooth removal...

[Redwolf]

I didn't have much trouble, even when I got a dry socket when one of my lowers was removed. The main thing is that you really want follow the post-operative instructions, and be sure to contact your dentist right away if you have any problems. There's a lot they can do these days to control the pain.

Playing whistle shouldn't be problem, I wouldn't think. What they will have you avoid for a while is anything that creates suction, such as sucking on a straw or smoking.

Are you having a general anesthesia? If you can afford it (or if your insurance will pay for it) it's a lot easier on your system...as others have said, wisdom teeth have big roots.

Redwolf

When my dentist was trying to repair the cavity on my wisdom tooth and he realized that it was very deep he told me: "It's so deep, it'd be better to pull out. Do you want it to remove it?", I told him: "Noooo!!!".
He wanted to pull out in the moment. I didn't let him.
The tooth is totally emerged, not hidden inside the gum, so I don't know if it would be easier to pull out because of that.
I don't think that here in Argentina it's common to use general anesthesia for a tooth removal.
My dentist gave me a local anesthesia (quite painful) and was hurting a lot while he was working on the cavities, so, that's the main reason because I'm very scared about that extraction. If cleaning a cavity was hurting me, I don't want to imagine a tooth removal...

Sorry, I missed the fact that you're in Argentina.

If I were you, I'd tell the dentist flat out that whatever local anesthetic he was using when he worked on your cavity was not effective. There are people on whom the standard oral anesthetics don't work (I'm one, and dreaded dentists for years because of it. My current dentist uses a different local anesthetic on me now, and it's like night and day. Even crown preps don't bother me!). If he knows that the anesthesia he was using wasn't effective, he may be able to use something else.

Here, wisdom teeth are normally removed by oral surgeons, not regular dentists, and the option of intravenous anesthesia (basically just valium and sodium pentothal) is readily available (though not all insurances cover it). If that's not the case there, perhaps your dentist can do something else to help. Nitrous Oxide ("Laughing Gas") used to be quite common in dentist's offices here...that might be an option.

Another thing to keep in mind...when the dentist was working on your cavity, he was probably working very close to, and maybe even coming into contact with, a nerve. Nerve pain is a whole different category of pain. It could be that the same anesthetic that wasn't terribly effective for the cavity will be just fine for the extraction.

The bottom line is, talk to your dentist and express your concerns. Hopefully, he can come up with a way to make this as painless as possible for you.

BTW, yes...a tooth that is fully emerged is MUCH easier to remove than one that's "impacted." It's still a big, deep-rooted tooth, but at least they probably won't have to cut it out.

Redwolf

[Cork]

A wisdom tooth extraction? That's nothing!

I once had to have one of my upper molars pulled out. Unfortunately, however, one of its roots had penetrated my sinus cavity, and, worse, the root of that tooth had turned into an upside down letter "J", twisted. Well, along with having to have a hole between my mouth and my sinus cavity, the surgeon literally had to break the bone on the side of my head (CRACK!) in order to extract that tooth. Then, to make matters even worse, the hole then developed an infection, which called for strong antibiotics, and what a show that was! Fortunately, in the end, the hole mended itself, and all went back to normal, minus that tooth.

Tooth troubles are no fun, BTDT.

At least, however, given what modern medicine can do, tooth troubles are at least temporary (remember: temporary!), so hang in there!

[Bothrops]

Redwolf: Thanks a lot, you make me calm quite a bit! I'll tell my dentist all my concerns and I'll see what does he say.
Indeed, he was working very near of the nerve when trying to clean that cavity, because it was very deep (according to him).
The anesthesia I assume that's good, because my lower lip and my tongue were completely numb.
This dentist lives 2 blocks away from my home, but I didn't know him. It's a man of about 45 yrs old or so, I think he may have experience because of that. But the fact is that, as I don't know him, I'm not very confident about him and I'm 'a bit' scared too!

Cork: Of course, I have to be mentally strong and think that there are much worse things. I know this is a stupidity.. a 15-20 minutes surgery, but it's the first of my life (and I hope the last one! ).

Cheers,
Martin

[Charlene]

I still have all my wisdom teeth and hope I never have to have them out. I have had a lot of crowns done and about 4-1/2 years ago I broke my front tooth and they patched that up. The broken tooth hurt off and on for at least a year but it finally stopped. I also bit right through my lip at that time - and it happened 2 days before major surgery. Not a fun fall that year.

[Bothrops]

Holy #@€!

I'm back from the dentist.
He pulled out my wisdom tooth within 10-15 minutes. It was quite easy, because it was totally emerged.
It hurt quite a lot (even with the 3 injections of local anesthesia), but I'm SO BRAVE and didn't cry nor scream, LOL!

The fact is that I'm back, bleeding like a bi*ch and with a numbness in my mouth because of the anesthesia. I'm swallowing a lot of nasty blood, because spitting is a no-no...

I hope to recover within a few days.
Fortunately, the next week I'm waiting a Doug Tipple flute and a Bb whistle from a friend, so, that's the good part
Oh, and tonight I'm going to eat a lot of ice cream, that's very nice as well

Cheers,
Martin

[anniemcu]

Holy #@€!

I'm back from the dentist.
He pulled out my wisdom tooth within 10-15 minutes. It was quite easy, because it was totally emerged.
It hurt quite a lot (even with the 3 injections of local anesthesia), but I'm SO BRAVE and didn't cry nor scream, LOL!

The fact is that I'm back, bleeding like a bi*ch and with a numbness in my mouth because of the anesthesia. I'm swallowing a lot of nasty blood, because spitting is a no-no...

I hope to recover within a few days.
Fortunately, the next week I'm waiting a Doug Tipple flute and a Bb whistle from a friend, so, that's the good part
Oh, and tonight I'm going to eat a lot of ice cream, that's very nice as well

Cheers,
Martin

I do hope you are keeping pressure on that, and that the bleeding has stopped! Hope your recovery is fast!