Yeah, I have all three(!) of mine, too. I had occasional pain in the gums while they were coming in, but no problems and no crowding. In fact, I developed a very slight space between my front teeth on top…
My bottom two were horizontal. The oral surgeon told me that damage to a nerve like you describe happens in about 1% of operations on the lower teeth in such situations due to the way things are laid out down there.
In my case, I was told that one or two of mine were possibly going to cause problems with my sinus cavity, and would require surgery. They decided that as long as they were going to be going in there, it would be wise to take out the others as well.
I was not pleased, especially because I am a genetic freak and had 7 wisdom teeth. The surgery wasn’t so bad, but I was sent home with gaping holes in my mouth and a bottle of these huge pills that were to be taken every 4 - 6 hours and looked like something you would feed a horse. Of course, my dear old mother decided that I was going to get addicted to them so threw them away and gave me advil instead… 
So I don’t know about how painful they are growing in, but taking them out can be QUITE unpleasant!
Okay, Bear, it sounds like it’s just your gums, so that’s normal. Anbesol[sup]R[/sup] works, and if you’re embarrassed to buy it (it’s advertised for teething babies), just make yourself a fake note and claim that your Mom/sister/Aunt Martha sent you down to the store for it. Kroger usually has it, Osco or Walgreens always has it. It’s by the dental floss/Blistex.
If you want a “natural” solution, put a heaping 2 teaspoons of ordinary table salt in a teacup full of hot water (like saltwater tea, okay?) and rinse your mouth out several times with this, with particular attention to the sore part. Do not swallow. 
It’s an old orthodontia trick to numb the discomfort of the monthly “tightening”.
Hell, I’ll just pick some up next time I’m out getting some Pedialite for my next hangover…
I was in the same situation- two of my wisdom teeth were growing sideways into the teeth next to them, and when the oral surgeon was removing them, he DID nick a nerve.
I know one other person it’s happened to, and their results were similar to mine.
“Permanent nerve damage” doesn’t need to mean one side of your face hanging slack and lifeless. You can’t tell by looking at me that anything’s off. There’s just a dime-sized piece of skin at the corner of my mouth that has a dead tingle, like a foot that’s gone to sleep, quite mild. I don’t think about it most of the time, unless I accidentally bite it or something like that.
The thing is, I avoided having the oral surgery, too. But eventually, the pain of having those impacted teeth got to be REALLY awful. I mean, very bad. So bad that I had it done even though I didn’t have any insurance and had to pay over $1000 out of pocket. So bad that even my terror of having my first surgery didn’t seem to raise any serious objection. By comparison, that little dead spot is No Big Deal.
So, do whatever you want, but my advice is, go ahead and have them removed. You’ll probably be okay, and even if you aren’t, you’ll probably still be better off. There’s no pain quite like tooth pain.
My wisdom teeth hurt a bit when they were coming in. They primarily caused soreness of the gums where they were breaking through, and increased sensitivity to heat and cold in all the other teeth. One day, my dentist told me to have them pulled…when I went back for my next checkup, he said, “well, they’re in, and they’re not screwing with anything, so you might as well keep them.” So I have all 4 of my wisdom teeth. Unfortunately, all 4 have cavities, so I need to get them filled soon.
Jman
but I was just checking out my mouth in the mirror and I can see the little bastard poking through back there. I think what’s causing the pain is that it’s kinda cutting into where my cheek meets the gum at the back of the mouth. Though there seems to be enough gum room for the tooth, I am thinking there might not be enough overall room for another jagged-edged pointy object back there with all the soft squishy flesh. I am starting to consider having it removed.
It doesn’t seem to be much unlike an ingrown toenail the way it’s cutting into my cheek like that. Since, I have successfully performed countless ingrown toenail removal operations, I think this would be a good next step for me. I will need better tools than the ole trusty knife, razor blade, pointy-thing and nail clippers that make up my Official Bear Self Surgery Kit.
I live in Florida so I can’t use the tested “Ice Skate and Rock” technique. Unless of course someone would mail me an ice skate.
What I do have is a pretty cool SOG Powerlock Multi-tool with a titanium-nitride coating, a box cutter, some 550 cord, a Dremel tool with lots of cool bits, and a really awesome fiber optic flexy tube camera with helmet mounting hardware. Ok, the camera I would have to borrow from work, but it would really make things easy what with working backwards in the mirror and all…
Should I go for it??? Option B at the moment is to see if the University has any student dentists or something that could practice or take an exam or lab with my mouth or something.
Egad. The Bear’s finally flipped. Not only is he proposing to extract his own wisdom tooth with power tools, but worse, he’s also proposing to let STUDENT DENTISTS practice on him.
Aren’t regular professional dentists bad enough, dude? You wanna be strapped into the chair and hear a pimply-faced Dr. Szell-wannabe say, somewhere beyond the blinding light, “…um, was it supposed to spurt like that?” and hear the prof say, “No, no, it’s quite all right, continue…”
My experience:
I’m 35, and my wisdom teeth came in straight and OK, and then stopped just poking out of the skin! For the past decade or two I’ve had occasional soreness from them, which I ignored. I also ignored the dentists in the US who urged, nay, begged! me to let them rip them out.
Until this year. I had a toothache in the upper left side of my jaw, and it sucked to a high degree (I’m talking PAIN here!).
Off I go to a dentist here in Seoul who happens to speak English pretty well (I don’t trust my Korean while I’m in pain: ((In Korean)…in short, this arm has to come off. Is that OK? Astroboy, not understanding, (In Korean) Yeah, sure, whatever! The next day: Hey! Where’s my arm? What happened! MOMMY!).
He takes an X-ray and says “This wisdom tooth has to go!”
I cringed. “HAS to? That will end the pain?”
“No (can’t fault him for lies, at least!)” he said, “it will increase the pain and make it last for a week or so… but then it will go away.”
“Ok”, I said reluctantly, “Do it…”
He gave me a shot or two of lidocaine, and then proceeded to gather an amazing collection of chainsaws, jackhammers, drills, razor blades, rusty pliers, nutcrackers, bottle openers, toenail clippers, and other impliments of destruction… and also a HOT dental hygenist who hovered over me in a most fetching and concerned manner… but I digress.
When he was finished collecting, and was sure I was all numbed up, the dentist said, “OK. If you feel pain, raise your left hand.”
“You betcha!” I said, drool leaking past my right ear and into the collar of my shirt.
He did a couple of things which went unfelt… but as reflected in the eyes of the hygenist (who had a really cute worry-wrinkle between her gorgeous eyes) were preparatory to removing the offending molar.
He then grabbed another tool, inserted it into my mouth, and I heard a CRUNCH! I felt nothing, but I panicked anyways! My left hand shot up (smacking the hygenist in the face, but I feel sure that she has since forgiven me)… The dentist ignored my hand and continued…
Then there was pain. But not that much…
A few (unpleasant, but not as bad as I feared) minutes later we were done.
He gave me a prescription for some meds and sent me on my way…
Not too bad, on the whole.
However, by the time I had gotten on the subway and had gotten to my neighborhood, the lidocaine had worn off… OW!! OWWWW!!! And I still had to get my meds!
All of the pharmacy-stores in my neighborhood were useless! They didn’t have the meds I needed! I had to walk half-way around the circumference of my university to find a pharmacy that DID have the prescribed meds (Maybe a mile or so, my mouth HURTING with every step!).
Found a pharmacy, asked for the meds. The pharmacist was delighted that I spoke Korean! (Pharmacist(In Korean): You speak Korean? That’s great! How long have you been in Korea? Where are you from? Etc… Me (in Korean, in misery, mumbling, while trying to NOT dislodge the gauze that was plugging the hole in my mouth and keeping me from bleeding to death): Yeah, I speak a little, but not now! OK? Pharmacist (in Korean): Oh! Yeah… right. Sorry!! Here ya go!
Got my meds, went home. Ugh!
A few days later, I looked at the tooth. It had a nice cavity in the crown that looked like it went all the way to the root! I started thinking maybe the other 3 wisdom teeth might be in similar condition… I called the dentist!
He said that they probably ARE in similar condition (they are all covered with a flap of skin preventing proper cleaning). I said “well, shouldn’t they be yanked?” He said, “Sure, but we’ll wait until there are symptoms.”
So I have to look foreward to going through that 3 more times!
Repeat: Ugh!
So, what you’re saying is, if Bear’s gonna have his wisdom teeth out, Korea’s probably not the best place for it?
Got that, Bear?
On the plus side, it cost me about $15 or $20 at the dentist office, and about $20 for the meds… I’d hate to think what it would’ve cost me in the US!:eek:
I’m sure it would have been a bit more than $40!