Ow. Just got my wisdom teeth out yesterday.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So it’s been about 24 hours since I got my wisdom teeth out. Hasn’t been the best experience of my life. Possibly TMI ahead, so read at your own risk.

After I got them taken out, my mom and the dentist assistant hoisted me into the car where I fell asleep. About 20 minutes later I woke up. I touched my right cheek and was horrified to discover that my face was covered in blood. Not fun. A change of gauze and we were on our way.

Went to the hospital and picked up my pain medicine and antibiotic pills. Of course I couldn’t eat because I couldn’t (and still can’t) open my mouth more than about an inch. I also can’t shut it all the way. Anyway, since I couldn’t take the pain pill with food, I threw up a couple of hours later. What did I throw up, you may ask? A nasty soup of bloody spittle and these blood clot things that I guess I’d been swallowing all along. Ick.

Ice paks are my friend.

So today’s been better. I ate some noodles and took a pain pill that hasn’t kicked in yet, but needs too. On the bottom left side of my jaw I can feel this big thick flap of skin. The doctor said it would either heal over or turn hard and fall off. Let’s hope for the healing part.

2

I feel your pain. I had a tooth pulled yesterday too.

My husband is next, 3 wisdom teeth and a tooth that was so bad it actually broke off has to be removed.

3

I hear ya. I had mine done a year ago October. Were you impacted? Did they take all of them?

My advice, if you’d like it, is thus: Get someone to make you lots of milkshakes (or frappes, or smoothies, or whatever soft, liquidy drinks) and spend some quality time with the television or computer.

My thoughts and prayers are most certainly with you. I hope the pain pills kick in; you seem to be feeling more pain than I did. And for the record: I had the skin-flap dealie, too. It healed. Good luck.

4

Just checking in…how goes it, roadkiller?

5

up!

I had mine out this morning. I’m doing way better than I thought I would–I’ve been surviving on Advil; haven’t had to turn to the hard drugs yet. And I’ve been able to eat Jello, pudding, and really little pasta.

It took them like fifteen minutes to find a vein for the IV, and they had to stab me like five times. I Do Not Like Being Stabbed. And now I’ve got multiple nasty bruises on my arms, making me look like a heroin addict.

I haven’t been in much pain; it’s more general discomfort. Mine was an easy case, apparently, because the roots hadn’t formed all the way yet. And swelling hasn’t been bad either; I don’t look like a chipmunk or anything.

Sitting in the recovery room was kind of funny, since I had just woken up and was really spacy. Then I tried to walk out to the car, but my mom had to help me not fall over. :wink: But that wore off after a couple hours.

6

I had all 4 impacted at once :slight_smile: The worst part of it all was being packed with gauze for the first 24 hours and drooling everywhere and not being able to do much about it because you can’t feel anything or swallow hehe. And the itching!

at least it’s over with!

7

I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth taken out while I was in the Air Force. They asked if I wanted to be knocked out or just a local, and being the tough guy that I am :rolleyes: I opted for the local. I figured it’s just pulling teeth, how painful can it be?

It actually wasn’t bad during the actual procedure. They took me to Wilford Hall (the hospital on Lackland Air Force Base), because they planned on me being heavily medicated enough to have to spend the night - they were NOT letting me drive home that day. I sat in the chair and was given an IV of something-or-other to relax me. Oooooooooh yeah! I was feeling smooooooooth. Whatver that drip was felt great, so I immediate thought I had made the correct decision in opting for just local anesthesia.

Then the tooth-pulling began.

I don’t remember much of it, thanks to the IV-induced haze I was in, but I do remember at one point the dentist was having trouble with one of the teeth. He put his knee on the chair for leverage while and assistant held my head still and YANKED. I remember seeing a slow-motion trail of blood following the tooth from my mouth and being so stoned I thought, “Whoa! Cool!”

Afterwards, I was in a completely non-private room with 3 roomates, all of whom wanted to chat with the new guy. I was numb from chin to nose, cheeks so swollen you’d think I had a couple puffer fish hidden in my mouth, still stoned from the IV, and these guys wanna chat.

“So, what are you here for?”
“My middom neent mooled.”
“Sorry?”
“My middom neent” I’d repeat, pointing at my mouth and miming yanking a tooth.
“Oh, tonsilitits. We’ll try not to steal your ice cream when you’re sleeping, hehehe.”

And in what I’m sure was video taped (and probably still viewed by the staff when they need a cheap laugh) lunch was served. I’m still numb from nose to chin and they serve me Jell-O, chicken broth, and a thing of juice with a straw. I tried to ask the nurse how I can eat this when I couldn’t feel my face (“Owm I mummosta eaddit?”) but the nurse just showed me where the spoon was on my tray.

You ever try to eat Jell-O and broth when your face is numb? I could never tell if the spoon was in my mouth; I just listened for it to click again my teeth. The Jell-O was even more difficult to eat than the broth, and I resorted to just sliding it down my throat off the little plate. Sucking the juice through a straw was another effort in futility which I gave up on after saturating my shirt and part of the bedsheets.

All this fun, and I hadn’t yet to feel the pain to come later.

So I sympathize, or empathize, or jazzercize, or something like that. Don’t forget to get one of those syringes to clean food and stuff out of the holes in your gums. You don’t want that to get infected or anything.

8

I spilled a couple glasses of juice this morning due to misjudging where my (then completely numb) lower lip was. :stuck_out_tongue: They told me not to drink anything through a straw yet, for some reason.

My stitches are poking me, and the heroin-addict bruises are looking ever more colorful. But I’m coherent and not in too much pain, so I’m all right.

9

IANAD, but maybe cuz you have stitches and the suction is bad for them or something. I didn’t have stitches, just four holes in the back of my mouth.

10

OUCH! Three of mine were removed at age 27, and I still remember it being an absolutely horrid experience. I had numbness in my chin for ten years due to a cut nerve - come to think of it, the feeling has only come back within the past year or so.
Get well soon, my advice would be to toss the pain medication and drink heavily (without a straw)!

11

Hey everyone! Yes it’s taken me FOREVER to reply to my own thread! I’ve been gone pretty much the whole time - first to Table Rock Lake, then to Grand Lake, then to Noel, Missouri, and I just got back from Oklahoma City about an hour ago.

So everything healed up nicely. I did get a dry socket (ouch!) which slowed down the healing process considerably!

ErinPuff, I can’t believe you are actually eating and drinking. That’s crazy! I just laid on the couch the whole first day and bled and cried. The worst part was throwing up.

sstaurus, you know just how I felt! My bottom lip itched like CRAZY! It’s the weirdest feeling to scratch your face and not be able to feel it. My bottom lip was numb for so long that I actually was getting scared that it was numb permanently! And I guss one of the side affects the gas has on me is that it makes my face itch. My nose and the surrounding area itched for a good week afterwards.

12

Well, I’m young (17.) We bounce back. :wink:

13

Crunchy Frog, in reading your post, I got sympathy pains (or maybe I was just remembering the aching I had). Odd, though, I had the local and I was in and out of the office in about a half hour or so–sent me home with the Rx and I was drinking frappes a few hours later (sans straw). I didn’t get a syringe dealie, either–I just rinsed with salt water.

…Was I the only one without an IV?

14

Was this a civilian or military dentist? The Air Force (in the early 90s at least) had a rule that you couldn’t be left alone the first night or drive yourself afterwards, so I had to spend the night at Wilford Hall.

I also have my own suspicions about the military dentists that they just like doing extra things to patients because they can.

15

It was a civilian doctor, Crunchy Frog. :slight_smile:

16

Drinking through a straw can create enough suction to dislodge the clot that’s formed in the socket. That leads to the condition known as dry socket. Bone and raw tissue are exposed. Healing is significantly delayed as there is no framework on which granulation tissue can form. The pain has been described as…indescribable.

On preview I see roadkiller has been unfortunate enough to experience this. My condolences.

17

Buckleberry Ferry,
I had my wisdom teeth pulled about ten years ago, and I didn’t have anything but a lot of novocaine. They did one side at a time, so my whole mouth wasn’t out of commission, and my dentist is a real artist at causing as little pain as possible. Of course, they weren’t impacted or anything, so no digging was necessary, just pulling.

And not to scare anybody or anything, but I’ve now had five wisdom teeth pulled. Yes, one of them apparently had a reserve waiting in the wings.

18

Ugh. I had mine out two days ago and am still recovering. It seems to go in cycles… sometimes I’m up and bouncing around and cheerfully looking for something to do, then sometimes - like now - they just ache and ache and all I want to do is lie down. The crappiest part is that I only have about 1/2 a day’s worth more of painkillers, so I have to ration them. I’m going to try to go back to sleep… and pray against a dry socket.

19

As far as I recall, all I had was novocaine, but they did all four of mine–impacted–at the same time. Really quick, and I was pretty OK about four days later.