I had mine out when I was 19. I was nervous, but it really wasn’t so bad. Mine were impacted, so they had to cut them out. I did all four at once, and the worst part was the anesthesia kinda made me nauseous. I didn’t need any painkillers other than plain old Ibuprofen. It wasn’t nearly as bad as getting my tongue pierced.
I’m not telling of a good experience, but joining the OP with a similar predicament.
I’m 18, and they’re telling me I need to have 2-3 wisdom teeth out. I say 2-3 because my old orthodontist and dentist both said two, and the last dentist I went to said three.
The bottom right is “diving,” meaning it’s facing the tooth in front of it. So, I’m being told that that one needs to be removed. Apparently, the one above it must come out also, because we can’t leave it without a partner. :dubious: The third dentist told me that the upper left has to come out because it doesn’t have a partner, as the bottom left took the place of one of my molars that rotted away and had to be dug out.
None of the teeth have given me any pain, and I believe they are fully grown in, as they’ve been there for over a year. I think I’m going to wait. Then again, a couple months ago, I started getting a cavity filled, chickened out in the middle of it, and had to leave with a partial filling. I’m waiting to get that and my other cavities done, too. 
When I was 19 I was told 3 of the 4 had to come out. The fourth was apparently coming in nice and straight and not bothering any other teeth.
I go to the oral surgeon’s place. (My dentist wouldn’t do the job). They took a full mouth x-ray. Then they asked me about anesthesia. I’ve read too many horror stories about anesthesia gone wrong, so if it’s not mandatory, I won’t take it.
I get shot up with about 4 needles worth of novacaine or some equivalent.
After a few minutes or so, the doctor comes in, tells me I’ll feel pressure but no pain, and that it’ll be over in short order.
He takes out what looks like regular pliers (but of course they weren’t), has me open my mouth and just grabs tooth #1 (upper left). He tugs, applies pressure and whammo it’s out. Next up lower right. Same sequence. This is easy.
Last up is lower left. He’s tugging when “CRACK”. Uh-oh. He tells me to not move my tongue. He gets a different instrument and removes half a tooth from my mouth. He says, “it broke, I have to cut the gums to get the root.” I’m in no position to argue. He puts a scalpel in my mouth and cuts. Again, no pain, but this has a creepy “feel” to it. He then uses the pliers again and it’s out. He puts in a couple of stitches and tells me that I’ll have to come back in a week to have the stitches out.
He gives me a pain killer scrip (SYNALGOS DC) and sends me on my way.
I didn’t feel any real pain until that evening, but SYNALGOS took care of that.
He let me keep the teeth.
Sorry for the hijack but I just had to chime in. I guess I’m a genetic mutant, I have never had wisdom teeth. my first cavity was at 28 years old and I’ve had no need of braces ever.
Guess I’m ready to join the X-Men, huh?
I got all four out (plus some weird extra tooth thing in the front) back in high school. Had them out on Friday, came home, slept for a few hours, spit out the nasty cotton pads, and then I was pain/swelling/pain killer free from then on. Never had any problems with it. I even went to a friend’s birthday party the next day and ate pizza.
During the actual surgery, though, I woke up several times to find the doctor practically standing on my chest trying to wrench the bizarro tooth out. So if you don’t have one of those, you’ll be fine!
Humorous story: my friend’s aunt works as an assistant in an orthodontics office place. She has all sorts of fun stories about what people do when they’re under. The best, though, was the guy who woke up to find that he had mysteriously removed his pants and just would not let the staff put them back on.
Not quite. My mom is approaching 60 and has never had a cavity or braces or wisdom teeth. My Dad is the same, but he did have wisdom teeth. I think good teeth are genetic.
In any case, yeah, I’m sure mine need to come out. My top one is hurting me. The bottom ones are growing into my other teeth and have already started messing them up (you can tell in the x-ray they’ve shifted a bit), but they aren’t hurting me.
Thanks though… these stories are definitely making me feel its more routine than the horror stories make it out to be.
Well, I got mine out last summer, same time as every other 19-year-old in town was having it done. Same orthodontist, too (small town). General anæsthetic, went like a dream. Afterwards the painkillers made me throw up and therefore I became dizzy from hunger and unable to keep food down till switching to extra-strength Motrin – but then again I have the weakest, sissiest stomach ever, nobody else has this problem. Lay in bed, ate Popsicles and applesauce, slept, read books for a few days. I was up and about on the third or fourth day. No problems since. Most people took a week to recover.
And BMalion, at least three of my friends don’t have wisdom teeth! The mutants are spreading!
Mine all came in straight and comfortable; still got 'em.
I was about 22 or 23, and I actually had enough room for my wisdom teeth to fully grow in, weird as that is. The problem was that although the teeth were fully in, I couldn’t get my toothbrush behind them, so they were getting pretty spectacular cavities where I couldn’t brush.
So they had to come out.
One of the top ones was apparently dangerously close to a root canal at my semi-annual checkup, so I scheduled an appointment to get it removed when I’d be back from school in mid-October.
That one consisted of novocaine, my dentist tugging on it for a bit, about 2 minutes of me yelling “hey- it still hurts a little-hey!” and him going “Shut up! Quit being a baby- it’s done!”, and me going “Huh? Done?” and he said “Yeah- here.” and tossed me the tooth. There wasn’t any real pain, just enough for me to have been worried that it would have got worse. More of a slight ache than anything else. No complications either- it was fully healed by December when I got the other three removed.
In December, he gave me nitrous, and took the other three out inside of about 15 minutes. I went home, chomped on the gauze like they said, took a darvocet, and realized that they were terrifically overkill, and took to taking Advil for the rest of the day that I was more or less incapacitated. I basically sat there and bit down on gauze to stop the bleeding and watched TV for an afternoon. The next day I was fine, and haven’t had any trouble since.
Getting crowns… now that sucks. Wisdom teeth removed? No problem.
I just had a non-wisdom tooth removed last week. Thought I would chime in anyway as it was the non-event of the century.
I was completely terrified and worried for a week. Came into the dentist who gave me two shots of novaceine. He wiggle the tooth about which I felt but not as pain. Then he did something else. Then I braced myself for the big pull only to have him tell me I was done. Completely missed the whole event.
Trouble is though, this not being a wisdom tooth I will have to have the gap filled somehow. Not looking forward to that. Nor is my wallet.
Good luck.
I had two wisdom teeth taken out with a bit of drilling and Novocaine when I was 17. A few painkillers and a day later, I was fine but groggy.
I had the other two taken out at age 23. No drilling, nothing but a few shots of Novocaine and yanking, and I took two ibuprofen afterwards and had some packing in my mouth. I was done with the removal by 9 am, and by 10 am I was out Christmas shopping.
I forgot to give the epilogue to my tooth story.
5 years after the 3 were removed, my dentist informs me that the last one is now causing problems. Instead of sending me to the oral surgeon like last time, he says can do this one.
So he shoots me up with novocaine and does it. Only this time it felt wrong.
I left his office and went to work ( it was an early morning appointment). By noon I felt sick as a dog. I went home and got the shakes. I was this close to going to an emergency room. I fell asleep and the next day I felt really washed out but a helluva lot better than the previous day.
One of my friends suggested that I probably had gone into shock, and that I should have gone to the ER.
We’ll never know.
I must say, that fucking sucked in every way.
I was supposed to be put completely under, but I wasn’t. I was passed out for the majority of the operation, but it didn’t feel like it. I woke up a few times to enormous amounts of pressure in my mouth and was able to hear the doctor talking to the nurses. I would make a grunting noise and the doctor would give instructions to increase my medication, at which point I’d go back under. That happened maybe 3 times.
The last time was the worst. I heard the doctor saying how hard my last tooth was, then spoke directly to me telling me I was almost done. I heard chipping, breaking, drilling, clamping, and was generally miserable and pissed off that I had to be this awake. It hurt my ears, and it hurt my entire face as he yanked.
Anyway, he said it was one of the worst cases he’d seen, due to my roots being twisted and at a weird angle. The operation took longer than he expected, so the medication was wearing off before I was done. Overall, it was lame.
Now I’m sitting here on my couch drinking water and looking at this cup of pudding, knowing there’s no way I can choke it down just yet. It doesn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would, really. I suspect I won’t need much of that Vicodin. My face is a little swelled up and my throat is a little sore, but otherwise, I survived it pretty well.
First I’d like to say that the L key on this keyboard is broken, so if I’m missing a lot of them, that’s why. I try to fix them but I guess I miss some.
I had all four of mine out back in November and it was pretty bad. Here’s why:
Mine were all very impacted as well, pointing towards my face. I was under general anaesthesia. No big problem during. Woke up, groggy, and signed the credit card slip. Couldn’t stand, and was wheeled to the car.
Don’t remember the drive home. The next day I found blood all over my room as I had drooled all over the place. I had the holes in my gums stitched up.
I couldn’t eat well, so that caused blood sugar problems, which made me nauseous.
One of the stitches came out too early, and I still have a gaping hole in the bottom right. Food gets in, and I have to remove it.
The left side got infected and my gum swelled and would flap around loosely when I’d try to clean it.
And to top it off, they damaged a nerve so that my bottom lip is still numb on the left side. It’s less numb than it was, but it’s still tingly all the time!
So yeah, I hated it, but I don’t know anyone else who has had the problems with it that I have had.
Somehow I faied to notice that there was a second page to this thread. I must have taken my dumbass pills today.
It’s the only real surgery I’ve ever had. (And it’s hardly even real surgery.)
I went in, nervous. Laid down. They drugged me (but the drug haze makes that part all blurry. I don’t even remember if it was gas or I.V.) Then I woke up. I went home. No pain. A couple days on a liquid/mushy diet, and that’s it.
I had gauze pads in there for a couple days, and the worst pain I got was a mild headache from holding them in place. Ibuprofen was more than sufficient (and the 20 vicodin ended up being saved for later. :)) Easy as pie for me. No pain during the surgery, since I was out, and no real pain afterwards either. It was actually quite easy. No real swelling, no nothing. Boring as heck to write about, actually.
And mine were apparently impacted. So yours might be even easier.