I had the same condition, along with the annoying infection. Mine were removed without issue, and while my mouth was sore for days afterwards it was never painful. The antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and painkillers left me a little lightheaded while I was taking them. I was able to eat soft foods the same day as the surgery.
Using 20/20 hindsite I can say with certainty that it was a bad idea. I had tears streaming down my face from the pain. I used T3 for pain and all that did was cause more pain from constipation.
I keep wondering why do so many people have trouble with Vicodin? Mostly everyone throws up from taking it and most of the time it doesn’t relieve the pain like Advil. I took Vicodin once for wisdom teeth removal and Zoom whitening and it never worked and made me violently sick. Why can’t they invent a drug like Vicodin without the throwing up and nausea? I know there is Advil or Motrin, but some people say that doesn’t work either. Is Tylenol 3 the magic drug because I’ve never taken it.
I have had two of mine taken out; didn’t hurt anything (local anaesthesia) and went fairly fast. Nonetheless, a bit unpleasant and the first time the wound wouldn’t stop bleeding, so they stitched it the next time.
I had all four removed 13 years ago…they were all impacted. (My evil dentist said I had “way too many teeth” for my mouth and I swear that bastard laughed about it. Funny for HIM!)
I dunno what kind of sedative/drug they used because I was 17 and too foolish to ask, but I don’t remember the procedure at all. I got a shot in the arm and passed out within .02 seconds.
Nor do I recall what kind of pain reliever they gave me, but I’m assuming it was something like Vicodin b/c I’ve been prescribed it since then and it had familiar effects…sleepy and out-of-it. I was required (by prescription and my mother) to take it every 4/6 hours…but only with food. So I remember eating a lot of soup and applesauce and ice-cream even when I didn’t want it, just to “coat my stomach” for the pain meds.
For the OP…I’ll be honest. I lost ten pounds in about a week because eating was awkward, painful and icky. I ate what I had to eat for the pain meds and not much else; my dad actually yelled at me about the fact that I wouldn’t eat “proper amounts” of food. I just didn’t want to; every time I ate I had to “irrigate” the holes in my mouth with saline, and nothing tasted right and I just wasn’t hungry.
My face also swelled up like a chipmunk for a week or so.
And about ten days post-surgery I got very painful ear aches; the nerves in that part of your mouth are closely connected to your ears/jaw/etc., so I was told…so even though your ear is fine, it FEELS like a terrible earache.
The pain would keep me up at night.
HOWEVER, I never threw up from the pain…nothing that terrible or dramatic. Just a generally annoying, icky, not-so-fun period of about two weeks.
And as I said, all four of my wisdom teeth were impacted, so I’m sure that played a role. Yours are not, so good job by you!
Not a big deal, really. I’ve had worse periods, to be honest. (Albeit not as long.)
And YMMV, but general anesthesia is not a big deal for most people.
Don’t freak out.
And FYI if they use the dissolving stitches, be prepared to find random, revolting shards of stitches in your mouth. Not painful or terrible…just kinda gross and random.
I had no problem with Vicodin, other than it made me think that the Family Guy was really, really funny. My post-op instructions suggest that if it makes you queasy, you should try eating a small piece of chocolate first.
My personal suggestion for post-op food is Wendy’s Frosty. Nice and cold, and you can eat it with a spoon (they will probably tell you not to use straws for a week.) They also store well in the freezer–I’d usually eat half a Frosty at a time. Later, you can move on to Wendy’s chili. My sister asked me if Wendy’s had an “invalid special”. I don’t know, but they should! My husband got me a sandwich on Sunday, and I had to eat it like a two-year old–all ingredients separately, torn apart into itty bits, and all the lettuce and that rind on the side of the ham picked off. In retrospect, I wasn’t quite ready.
What was amazing to me is how well my parents were able to understand me with the gauze in my mouth. I pretty much thought I was saying garbled garbage, but they seemed to understand most of it, even when I woke up and realized I hadn’t told them about a gas explosion in our old town that I had heard about on the internet.
I just had mine out a month ago – bottom two were badly impacted but the top ones were fine.
It sucked. I was knocked out for the surgery itself (eventually – it took them 7 tries to find a vein), and don’t remember a thing from that point until the drive home. They required that someone be with me to listen to the instructions and pick up the painkillers and antibiotics from the pharmacy, which is a good thing. Apparently I participated in the conversation with the nurse regarding taking care of myself afterwards, but my husband had to repeat everything later.
Anyway, the suckiness was the pain afterward. My lower jaw was hideously swollen and stayed that way for three days. Eating hurt, and learning how to chew without getting food stuck back in the stitches was hard. I was on Vicodin, which killed my appetite, so that helped.
Still, I’ve healed up just fine and my dentist is happy. It all worked out in the end.
I had all four of mine out when I was seventeen. It was a big relief because they’d been hurting for a couple of years. I can’t remember why we waited, but it was because the dentist told us to, not because we wanted to. I had a local, he took them out, and sent me home. The shot hurt, but nothing else. I saw blood and pressure, but really felt no pain.
I did feel some pain over the weekend and took a day off school but got to eat plenty of ice cream, and Monday I was back at school.
The only problem I had was I had a very small mouth so it gave the dentist some trouble, or so he said.
I even kept the teeth for a long time…finally lost them when I left home.
I put off having my wisdom teeth removed for years out of fear. Eventually I had no choice, as I had what sounds like the same operculum problem.
I will admit I was scared to death. I’d never had an IV before let alone dental surgery. I had conscious sedation and remember nothing but dreaming I was on the Berry Train looking for berries, berries for jam. The oral surgeon did ask my husband if he could hear me yelling out in the waiting room, so it must not have been completely fun.
My husband drove me home, I packed my face in frozen vegetables, and took a nap. I took one pain pill before the numbing agents wore off, just in case, but really I had no pain. I’ve had ulcers that hurt worse. My jaw was a little achey for a few days, but I didn’t puff up like a Cabbage Patch doll the way I’ve seen some people. The sutures were annoying but dissolved in a few days. The whole experience was a “why didn’t I get that over with sooner?” situation.
I had my wisdom teeth removed at age 24 by a Dr. Fear. (Yes, Dr. Fear. His first name’s Dalbert though, so it kind of dilutes the horror.)
The procedure itself was easy–they gave me both local and general anesthesia. 2 of my teeth were impacted and I was in a great deal of pain afterward. Problem was, the medication made me sick. So for about two weeks I had to bounce back and forth between the choices of nausea and pain. I usually chose pain (as I did with knee surgery… nausea’s worse than almost anything to me.) I had the surgery done after school on a Friday, expecting to return on Monday, but I actually ended up missing a week of class… and it was a miserable, flat-on-my-back on the sofa kind of week, too.
The older you are, the harder it is. They did tell me my age would make recovery harder. And it did. I wasn’t back to normal for another month. It was not a pleasant experience and the only positive thing I have to say about it is that I never have to do it again.
My husband got his out at 24… he was better within a week. Experiences vary widely, but the part you’re nervous about --operation itself–is the easiest part. I’m a total fraidy cat, so if I can get through it, so can you. Good luck!
Had mine out about 15 years ago after the lower left got absessed and I spent a weekend looking like a chipmunk.
IV anesthesia and it seems that was a very good thing. Talking to the surgeon later his comments were, “If you weren’t knocked out we wouldn’t be very good friends right now.” and, “I don’t know what you eat, but your bones are like granite.”
Apparently I made him work for his money.
Recovery was no problem at all. Think I took a couple of pain pills the first day and that was it. Only issue I had were some adhesions where I couldn’t open my mouth more than an inch. Til one day I bought a Subway sandwich and couldn’t get it in my mouth. Thought okay, this sucks, counted to three and opened my mouth all the way. Heard about 8 pops in my jaw area where tissue tore loose and everything has been great since then.
About right. Two points:
1.) You get instructions on post op care. Follow them, they actually matter. Most bad outcomes are made orders of magnitude more likely by doing things like drinking through straws, eating food with sesame seeds, etc.
2.) You’d think that getting teeth removed would only effect your mouth, but as far as your body is concerned it has experienced trauma. Personally I was fairly useless at the gym for a week.
I drove *back to work *after mine with my face stuffed full of cotton. Got the next day’s paper put to bed and went home, where my father had made me a nice big bowl of red Jell-O, which I ate and then had a delayed reaction to the anesthetic. Boy, that red Jell-O was just as red coming back up!
But no real pain, and no other complications. Back to work the next day. How very diligent I was! How very stupid! How very young!
I’ll see your anecdote and raise you a “I’ve never heard of Vicodin making ANYONE throw up or fail to work.”
I didn’t feel any pain for about 2 days. On the night of the second, though, my jaw felt like it was locking up. The muscles hurt so bad, I couldn’t sleep. That lasted for 3 nights, getting better every night. Then I was fine. Make sure to avoid any sucking with your mouth, either for soup or a drink through a straw. Either one could loosen the blood clot. You DON’T want that! Keep the sockets clean (after every meal) and you should be fine.
Some how I think we’ve been over this, but I also had my wisdom teeth out by Dr. Fear in Ann Arbor. At the time he had a partner named Dr. Hitchcock too!
I had all of mine removed long ago, during my Army days. The two on one side, and then the two on the other side. I don’t remember what drugs were used, but I never felt a thing (which was weird because I was fully awake). Then they gave me a bottle of pills to take with me, and put me on sick leave. By the time I went back on duty (three days), I was good as new.
The teeth had never erupted fully, and were impacted. During the extractions I heard some hmmmmm impressive noises coming from my mouth because they had to break the teeth and pull out the pieces. Still I never felt any of it.
They did a good job.
Here is David after a trip to the dentist.
I was lucky. Had all four removed during my lunch hour, and went right back to work. The procedure was nothing, compared to the nightmare of implants with sinus grafts.
I had mine out (4 of the suckers) last year. I cannot stress this enough: you need to have a friend with you for the rest of the day and evening following your operation. My surgeon was quite good, and don’t remember any of the procedure itself. Having someone with you to help drive, pick up prescriptions, and provide gauze and other supplies when you need them is invaluable.
Post-op, the main discomfort you’ll have is not being able to eat anything besides pureed soups, yogurt, applesauce, and other semi-liquid foods. Most people recover fully within 1-2 weeks; I was a little unusual because I wasn’t able to resume normal eating for nearly three.
I requested and received the tooth shards from the operation. Most of them are pretty fragmented, but I’ve got one or two really big suckers. Anyone want to see?
I got three of mine out at the age of 40. I was expecting things to go hard, based on other people’s stories and the fact that 40 is supposedly the magical threshold where everything really has really solidified and they’re hard to get out.
I had sedation at the dentist’s office (not general, but I was OUT COLD) and it went pretty smoothly, nowhere near as bad as I feared. I took it easy that day and the next, but the cliche where you have two bags of peas tied around your jaw with a bra? Nothing like that.
I ended up with dry socket in two of the holes, a condition which is supposed to be horribly painful. And yet for me it wasn’t. And it’s not that I’m stoic–you should have seen me diving for the morphine when I was in labor. I really should have sought treatment for my dry socket sooner, but because I didn’t feel anywhere near the pain level others had described, I assumed I didn’t have it. It’s just that it varies from person to person–so prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Stay on top of your pain meds but wean yourself off the opiate-based ones as soon as you can. They’re constipating. Yeah.