I gotta get three wisdom teeth out tomorrow - please tell me encouraging things!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

The only bad part of it for me was the fact that I just had it done under local anesthesia. If you’re having that twilight stuff you should be golden.

The swelling will probably be down enough by 24 hours or so that it’s not that noticeable. I think I was some regular food by day 2 or 3, it’s a good excuse to eat soft junky food.

Unless you fall asleep and miss the raid, you should be able to make it. You shouldn’t miss it due to pain.

It won’t be excruciating, but take the pain pills like the others have suggested, on a schedule, for the first couple days, then see how it goes. There’s not much sense in not taking them.

Do everything they say to avoid dry socket.

A couple weeks after I had mine out a broken tooth or bone shard started poking through, and then migrated out. It’s not too unusual. It bugged me more than the tooth removal though because it was sharp and I kept messing with it with my tongue.

22

My wisdom tooth story(s) …

Mine:
All 4 out, with just a local. Top two were no problem, I asked dentist if that was him tugging to start the extraction … and he held up the tooth … already out! One bottom one was pretty easy and the other one was difficult (hook shaped root that was lined up with the x-ray so dentist did not expect it to be like that) … that one took a fair bit of work on the dentist’s part to get out. In fact, he was sure I would be in a lot of pain & have a lot of swelling.

Turned out just fine. I iced as instructed (Very Important!) and had almost no swelling. I took one of the Oxycodone (1 small step below Oxycontin … this was before we all knew about that drug) and decided to heck with that … switched to extra strenght tylonal and had no problems.

His: My then fiance had all 4 out. He was under full anesthetic at a dental surgeon’s office. He came home, did the icing etc and had no problems at all. Didn’t even use the pain killers the next day. In fact, the next day was our house inspection for our first house … He was up on the roof checking it out with the inspector. He had absolutely no problems.

My Mum: My mum never had her wisdom teeth out. They never showed up and they never bothered her. At the age of 75, she lost a back molar and a month or so later went back to the dentist complaining about how sore her gum was back there … she thought that she had a latent infection. Nope … she was teething. Her wisdom tooth finally had room to erupt and it was heading for the light. Dentist was all set to extract it. She said “NO way!” She swore it was her best tooth. No filliings, sparkling clean, perfect.

I didn’t need mine out due to pain, I had them out due to developing TMJ.(Tempo-mandibular Joint Disorder … clicking/painful jaw) The dentist thought they were probably pushing my other teeth around and causing my bite to go wonky. (And actually on the xrays you could see the effect quite clearly) However, a few months after I had them out, I realized that I hadn’t had one of my fairly regular “for no particular reason” headaches since I had them out. Turned out there was a reason for the headaches … impacted wisdom teeth. Definitely happy they are gone.

23

I had all four of my teeth removed a the same time. I had a vicodin before and a general during the procedure. Afterwords, I had some regular tylenol.

I was awake the whole time. I could feel and hear them pulling on my teeth.

The only discomfort I had was from keeping my mouth open while they were being pulled. I went to work that afternoon. I recall very little swelling and little to no residual pain.

24

I had all four yanked under local anesthesia. As I left the office, a gorgeous young nurse coming into the building smiled and said hi to me. I responded in kind, and wondered why my greeting elicited such a horrified look from her. I got to my car and looked in the mirror- my teeth were bloody bright cherry red and I had small red streams trickling from each corner of my mouth.

That being said, definitely take the prescription pills well before the numbness wears off. I only had to take the pills for the day of and after the extractions.

25

Um, no.

I had an infection in the tooth beside the last one, due to the impaction. :rolleyes:

But hey, you know better, right?

26

@Guinastasia…you missed my point, I know what impacted means, I was being sarcastic, I’ll use the :rolleyes: next time, so you’ll understand (I’m nice that way).

27

This is me. No problems at all. Regular food right away, no swelling outside of the immediate area, no real pain. I didn’t even take aspirin.

I did it under local novocaine shots.

My only real fear was dry socket, which I heard was super painful. But, apparently, all the dentist has to do about it is to put a small putty in the “dry socket” and the pain goes away.

You’ll be fine.

28

You are going to get some great drugs!

I had all four of mine out a quarter century ago with just a local and needed nothing stronger than advil for the pain.

29

I had the triple removal (back in 1979). 1 top 2 bottom.
Unlike so many here, I do not recommend being put under. Seriously, anesthesia is something for serious lengthy procedures. Liver transplant? Hell yes. Teeth removal - no way! To me it’s not worth the risk.

I had about 6 shots of novocaine ,or something similar, befor ethe procedure.
Sure, you’ll feel the pressure of the removal, but there was no pain at all.

One of my bottom teeth broke during extraction. The doctor had to cut the gum to remove the root, plus a stitch to close it. Again, no pain whatsoever.

They prescribed Synalgos DC. Don’t know if this is still in use. I ate very mushy Chinese food for days. Stitch came out 10 days later.

Good luck.

30

I had a lot of bleeding. If that occurs for you, I was recommended to suck on tea bags. Apparently, there’s something in it that staunches bleeding. Other than that, I was pretty good. I had four out at once and my jaw ached for 2-3 days and I was pretty out of it for about 24 hours due to the drugs, but after that, I was fine.

I probably couldn’t have concentrated enough for a raid the first night, but I find that drugs hit me pretty hard, so I think I’m an exception.

31

I had it in one of mine and it wasn’t that bad. It’s a dull ache that just doesn’t go away on its own for some weeks. I found that if I popped a single Advil a day, it was pretty much gone. And I’m the type of guy who takes at least two Advils for a headache.

32

I wish my dentist had instructed me to get my wisdom teeth pulled. All four came in clear, but I had developed some cavities on them (too much Mountain Dew in high school). I went for my last appointments before I dropped off my dad’s insurance at 21.

I went to my normal dentist, but he had just taken on a guy fresh out of school. In an excruciating marathon session that left both the dentist and I battered, he filled the cavities instead of pulling the teeth. Just as he was finishing up, the senior walked in the room and remarked “First set of wisdom teeth, huh? You’ll learn to just pull them from now on.”

Fast forward four years and I’m out of college. I’m ‘working poor’, running overnights at a call center. I go to a different dentist (new town) and I am advised to have them pulled. I looked at the estimate, blanched, and never went back.

Fast forward another three years and my wisdom teeth are rotting out of my head. The pain becomes persistent and low-grade, graduating to persistent and medium-grade. The pain became enough that I could not sleep, and I swear to Og that I resorted to gargling good whiskey for a local anesthetic. I’m still working poor, but in a different town, different call center, and with a little better benefits. And I really have no choice.

I had all four out under local only (couldn’t afford more), and it was a breeze. There was pressure but no pain. In fact, the removal of the persistent pain left me feeling better leaving. I good enough to give my then SO a bloody-toothed grin, a la california up above.

That should have been then end of it, but the decay from the bottom left wisdom tooth had spread to the molar in front of it. I ended up breaking that tooth in half and having to have it extracted.

I would have been better off having the damned things out from the start. Instead, an inexperienced dentist and my own financial situation combined to leave me with teeth rotting in my skull and missing an additional tooth.

But for the OP–as I said, the extraction itself was a breeze. No pain meds afterwords, no swelling, no problem with dry-socket–even though I smoke against doctor’s orders, just making sure to have the gauze packed well down.

Best of luck to you.

33

Yep, although it’s not the first choice of most doctors. It’s got dihydrocodeine, aspirin and caffeine. Excellent for suppressing coughs, too!

These days, for dental work, it’s more likely you’ll be prescribed Vicodin (acetominophen and hydrocodone) or Percocet (acetominiphen and oxycodone) with or without large doses (600 or 800 mg) of ibuprofen, instead.

34

Thanks! Yeah, my dentist said he almost never has dry-socket problems…apparently the way they do it now is to pack the holes with some kind of gel that eventually turns into bone, then stitch the gum up over it (if I understand what he said correctly). So there’s no gauze, just this gel stuff.

You guys are making me feel a lot better about this. Of course I might end up being one of the unlucky ones who has complications, but thank <fill in favorite deity here> that hasn’t usually been the case in my limited experience with medical procedures. But even so, I was expecting to be unable to leave the house (due to pain and swelling and bruising) for like a week (fortunately I telecommute), but it sounds like that’s not the case and that makes me happy. I can live with eating soft food for a few days.

35

I had a local. Wasn’t bad at all. The shots were the worst part. Three went out quickly, fourth had a hooked root issue that took about 15 minutes plus a couple of trips back and forth to the x-ray chair to resolve. Soft foods and advil for a few days. Facial swelling wasn’t very noticable.

36

Well you know that every answer is a big ‘it depends’ so this is just my experience.

  1. There’s eating normal food and there’s chewing with the back teeth. The next day I could eat anything I didn’t mind chewing with my front teeth. It was probably about 3-4 days before I could really chew.

  2. Never had noticable swelling, but didn’t want to be out and about then next day either.

  3. Depends on the anesthesia/pain meds you’re given. I went home and slept for the rest of the day.

  4. On a scale of 0-5, it was about a 3 for the rest of the first day. When I was awake. It was only about a 2, and only when eating, for another few days. But pain when you’re eating can be really annoying.

Tooth situation - I had two on the top that were intermittently trying to erupt, as in they’d break out through the skin and then recede, and two on the bottom that would just cause the gums to swell and that were knocking my bottom teeth out of line. It was usually intermittant soreness and bleeding, unless two that were opposite acted up at the same time. Then it interfered with eating.

In the x-rays you could see the top ones coming in on an angle, but impacting against the next tooth so that only the back half of each one could erupt. The bottom ones were coming in sideways. So the top ones could be pulled, but the bottom ones had to be cut out.

That made it surgery with general anesthesia. If you’re not going to have general, you’ll have a different experience. Pulls cause less pain and heal faster. (I’ve had one since then - cracked root.) And general has more impact on the body, which may interfere with your reaction time on WOW.

Your dentist should require you to have someone else drive you to and from the office. You should not be driving right after. Mine did that. That was fine. He also had me stay for an hour after to be sure I was coming around okay.

I think I got a shot of a pain killer somewhere in there, though. Because when he came in to the recovery area and gave me all the after care information, I smiled and nodded and put the card with the list in my pocket and didn’t care about it at all.

I smiled an nodded on the drive home. It wasn’t that I was feeling no pain. There was pain, but it didn’t concern me at all. It was someone else’s problem. When I got home I went straight to bed instead of icing my cheeks.

So just in case, make sure that your driver or someone else is with you right after, and that they know what’s supposed to be done for aftercare. Someone who can fill ice packs for you. It didn’t cause me any problems, but it might have.

If there’s anything that wisdom teeth are for, having them in line as spares would get my vote.

37

I had all four removed last fall. They had been up and exposed for about 10 years and were mostly well-behaved but weirdly angled and were causing my adjacent molars to develop cavities, so I finally got them removed after about 5 years of nagging from my dentist.

I was knocked out for the removal because of all the weird angles. I don’t remember anything about the procedure except waking up at the dentist with my head swaddled up like a old timey football player.

There was a LOT of bleeding though. I was told it would bleed for X hours by the nurse (don’t remember exactly, something like 3 or 4 hours), and it bled constantly basically right up to whatever she said, virtually to the minute. I used up precisely all the gauze they gave me to take home.

I looked normal the next day. I was told to take a lot of ibuprofen, and did that. The upper two sockets healed up fine, the lowers seemed fine for 3 days but then, though I had followed all the instructions to the letter, the dreaded dry socket reared its head on the lowers.

Now, I had been told the dry socket was the WORST PAIN EVER, and I have to say this is either severely overrated or the pain varies from person to person. It wasn’t pleasant by any means, and the prescribed percocet made its appearance at this point, and I had to go back to the dentist every other day for him to put weird strips of goo in the holes, but it was not the WORST PAIN EVER by any means. More like “ugh, this is pretty damn annoying, I hope it ends eventually.”

The sneaky part is the pain would ebb up and down so you’d think it was going away but no, it wasn’t, it was a dirty dry socket trick. But it did go away eventually - I think after about 7-10 days if I remember right. That time is sort of a sleep-deprived percocet haze, sorry I can’t be more specific. :wink:

38

Like everybody else, I can only really tell my own experience in terms of what you might expect. Mine were pretty abcessed, so the local anesthetic didn’t really take. I have to admit, it hurt quite a lot. But it killed the residual pain immediately. But that was the only bad bit. After the local wore off, I could eat normal solids. Didn’t need the hydrocodone pills at all, or even the cotton balls. I went to change the bloody cotton balls and found I’d stopped bleeding already. So there’s that.

Good luck in the morning fella! I’m certain your extraction will go off without a hitch. :slight_smile:

39

For mine - no real pain. I’d call it discomfort. I think I went to a basketball game the next day. It wasnt a horrible experience. I was 21 or so when I had mine out. My daughter was 16 or so when she had hers out. She was on the couch for a day or two, but there wasnta lot of pain. I didn’t chew on the back for a day or two, but I ate anything I wanted. I hope it goes as smoothly for you.

40

I just had all 4 impacted removed last week under IV sedation. It wasn’t that bad.

  1. I was able to chew solids on day 3. On day 4, I ate four slices of pizza. I was back to my normal diet (chips and everything) in a week.

  2. Swelling seemed to peak on day 3 and went down after that. My left side went down a lot faster than the right side. It wasn’t visible by day 5-6.

  3. Everyone reacts differently to sedation. I had mine out at 7:30am and was completely coherent and alert by 8:45. I wasn’t sick or out of it or anything. My brother was puking left and right and basically a zombie for 6 hours. But you should be okay by the evening.

  4. I got by without the pain meds. I have 30 Percocet and 15 Phenergan sitting untouched on my desk. I started off with 4 Advil and 2 Extra Strength Tylenol every 6 hours and gradually tapered it. I was still on 2 Advil yesterday because of lingering jaw pain but haven’t taken anything today. My brother did need them, and again it varies, but yes it is possible to get by without them. I was never in any real pain. Discomfort, yes, pain, no.

The only potential pitfall with the Advil/Tylenol strategy is that if you decide it’s not working, you CANNOT just take the Percocet. You have to wait for the Tylenol to wear off. 1000mg Extra Strength Tylenol is the maximum dose, but Percocet contains the same stuff. Do not mess around with overdoing acetaminophen.

Follow all the instructions to avoid dry socket. You don’t want this. But after day 5 the risk goes way down.

And take it easy the first couple of days even if you’re feeling fine. I think I should have rested more, and even though I wasn’t on the pain meds or antibiotics I had some stomach issues (2 rounds of vomiting, some diarrhea). All in all, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting, but that wasn’t so much fun. And do the salt-water rinses!