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Oh god, my teeth!
desperaterobots
perth, ausRegistered User regular
perth, ausRegistered User regular
I am terrified of dentists, and as such have avoided them when I really shouldn't have.
So I'm looking for general advice on how to prepare for a dentist visit and for getting wisdom teeth yanked out. Complications being that I work in a job where I have to talk all day, so I'm thinking I'll probably need some time off to recover.
What foods should I eat? What pain should I expect? How long will it take? Should I ask for, nay, demand to be unconcious? Or is this kind of thing pretty straightforward?
So I'm looking for general advice on how to prepare for a dentist visit and for getting wisdom teeth yanked out. Complications being that I work in a job where I have to talk all day, so I'm thinking I'll probably need some time off to recover.
What foods should I eat? What pain should I expect? How long will it take? Should I ask for, nay, demand to be unconcious? Or is this kind of thing pretty straightforward?
desperaterobots on
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If you are going to a surgery to get them done you'll be out of action for a day or so. And maybe 4 to six days of imagintive food eating.
The following is good food to eat.
Pate
Custard
Yoghurt
What americans call Pudding
Guacamoli (I spelt that wrong)
Canned and stewed fruit
and fresh bread once you want to ease your jaws into something.
Satans..... hints.....
Pain: It won't be bad the first day or two because you will be on awesome painkillers. After that there will be some soreness, and you're going to want to avoid most solid foods for several days for both sanitary reasons and for avoiding serious pain. The recovery period is mostly going to depend on the operation - how many teeth you're getting out, and more importantly how many are impacted.
Time: Again, this depends on how many teeth you're getting out and how many are impacted. I'd estimate between one and three hours.
Anesthetic: I went with the general and got knocked out for the duration. If you are terrified of dentistry this is going to be the way to go.
If you work somewhere where you have to talk all day, you definitely want at least one day off. I would personally recommend two, or getting it done on a friday maybe. You'll be sitting at home one weekend, but it's better than being miserable at work or using too many days off.
The most annoying part, almost, was how uncomfortable holding gauze in your mouth is. Dear lord. After they are out you will be left with holes in your gums, which collect food and what not, so you always have to keep rinsing those out. I am sure they will cover all of this and more for you. Sorry it has to be done, but it is waaay better than the alternative of it fucking all of your teeth over.
Anyway, yeah. Price difference.
Desperate, I'm having all 4 wisdoms out under general in a couple of weeks, and the tooth removal itself will cost $1100, plus $350 for the knockout juice. I get $500 back from HCF, and $180 or so from medicare. You sound like you haven't even had an xray though, so here's the process:
you go to a dentist. They look at your teeth, scrape a bit of plaque off, tell you if you've got any obvious cavities (and fill them I suppose, I've never had that trouble), and tut tut over your dental hygiene no matter how good you are. You ask about ditching the wisdoms, and if they think its a good idea they'll refer you to a place that does xrays, and give you a separate referral to an oral surgeon. you take your referral and ring the xray place, and make an appointment. you go in, stand in a weird machine, and get radiation fired at your face by a panel that spins around your head. Whee! No pain at all, but goddamn it is hard to hold still long enough. You can hang around for an hour or so to collect the films, or get them mailed to you/your doctor. It'll cost a little bit, but you can claim almost 100% at medicare.
You then make an appointment at the oral surgeon's, and bring the xrays. The dude spends ten minutes looking at them, doesn't so much as glance sideways at your actual mouth, and tells you what needs to go, if anything. He'll brief you on the surgery and you'll decide on a date for it, probably a couple of months down the track. You pay too much for the consult and make the arrangements with the receptionist, who'll give you a quote for the work (claim the consult at medicare). You don't have to pay for the surgery itself until about a week before it happens. They'll mail you out a packet of stuff including consent forms and prescriptions for post-op painkillers, etc. Pay for the surgery, don't eat anything the night before, make sure someone will drive you home after, and you should be fine
The procedure itself wasnt so bad. I went in an hour earlier and they gave me a pill to take. I read a few magazines while passing the time, which seemd to speed up as the drugs took hold. Then they bought me into the dentist's office and started shooting me full of sedatives and anesthetics, and I lost count and full consciousness after about 6 shots. The next thing I knew was waking up in the middle, feeling (no pain, just vibrations, like some idiot just drove in his car playing music at full bass) a lot of hammering and stuff going on in my mouth, passed out again. Next conscious moment was being wheelchaired into my friend's car and being driven home.
I woke up much later in the night and my pillow was all red with blood. Funny that.
If you're getting all of them out at once, you'll be living off soups, yogurts, juices and drinks for the next two weeks. And your chinline will disappear as all your tissue swells up.
I had severely impacted wisdoms though, so they had to cut away a lot of bone to get them out and that extended my healing time and caused a lot of the swelling. I've heard of others who've had all their wisdoms out and are all healed after a week. Your milage may vary.
I had a slightly different experience with my ingrown toenail removal. My foot doctor pumped enough in to where I barely felt it. It was uncomfortable for sure, but it was only one prick, and one tug, and it was over in 5 minutes. I don't know if they use the same stuff for teeth though.
My only experience with general was when I was 7 and had kidney surgery, and all I remember was falling asleep, and waking up with my kidneys not trying to kill me, so I can't offer any advice on that end.
I was hella loopy until I was already home. This is what I did, it's not for everyone:
I went to the bathroom, replaced the gauss packed in each side of my mouth with fresh, then leaned over the sink and just bit down for a minute or two and watched the blood stream down from the corners of my mouth. Then I eased up and replaced the gauss, went and took a nap for an hour or two then later that night I drove the 20 minutes to my girlfriend's house and ate pizza. I was fine and just made sure to rinse with that salt water solution every time I ate.
I had 4 shots in each toe, and while the needle entering the skin was alright, the pumping of the anesthetic was possibly the most painful thing I've ever had. I felt absolutely no pain at all, but the feeling of the tugging was still very, very unsettling.
I had that done three times.
Ugh.
So, a friend of mine told me to take arnica for the week previous to the surgery, because it reduces swelling and bruising. Thing is, I can only find clinical trials on homeopathic arnica (ie water), and only when people took it post-operatively for very short periods. So of course the results are inconclusive and basically chart the placebo effect >_<. Anyone had any experience taking this stuff?
I didn't eat any solids for a day both times, but after the first time I had a week of concerts that I played in and I didn't have any trouble.
What is bad is stressing your mouth at all so you risk pulling out your stiches. I did that, swallowed a ton of blood, and then proceded to feel incredible nausa puntuated by vomiting blood for the next day and a half.
After you get the surgery I would say lay low, and stick to fluids. Most everyone I know that had it had no problems, but when you have problems they suck.
At least your dentist isn't my mother, who refuses to use nitrous (goddammit).
Foods, as said: Soft. Chow down on soup and ice cream. Or slurp, rather.
NNID: Hakkekage
It really is best to just go for your checkup twice a year, rather than waiting for a problem to manifest itself in the form of a toothache. Dentists can spot and avert serious dental problems long before they develop into something you'll notice.
It really was not that bad at all. It was just uncomfortable, and the dry socket -- the thing everyone freaks out about -- you just get it stuffed with this chewing tobacco-like stuff back at the dentist and it heals fine.
I've had so many mini-cavities from drinking fruit smoothies, that if I didn't go every six months I'd probably be toothless right about now
Anyway, went in, put me on an IV, passed out, woke up later with teeth gone and feeling fine.
As mine weren't impacted or anything, they just popped out. Didn't even need stitches and just ate noodles and mac'n'cheese for a few days. No pain, but a little sore.
Huh? I thought there were only 4 wisdom teeth?
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
To the OP: The only thing I can tell him is that however big a pussy he is about the dentist, I'm a bigger one. I hate, hate, hate the dentist, more than anything else in this world, and I almost didn't even read this thread just because it mentioned teeth.
However, the one bright spot is my experience with getting my wisdom teeth out. That shit was fun. I was nearly beside myself going in...then they gave me an IV and put this mask over my face. I was just sitting in the chair, all nervous as hell, and all of a sudden something struck me as funny and I just started giggling out loud. The surgeon said, "yeah, that's funny, isn't it?" and I was like, holy shit, laughing gas really does make you a goofball like on wacky sitcoms.
Soon I was drifting off into a nice cozy half-sleep. You know when you're sleeping, and you get woken up, and you know you're awake, but you still don't open your eyes and you're still basically having whatever random shit you were dreaming about running through your head? That was what it was like, for however long I was under.
I vaguely remember the surgeon and the nurse making small talk about somebody's kid wanting to breed rabbits. I felt them digging around in my jaw and I felt absolutely no pain; I was just kind of lazing around like it was a cozy Sunday morning. At one point I distinctly remember thinking, "This is so nice; I should tell them they can go ahead and take all my teeth out". That seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do at the time.
Afterward, I did the gauze/tea bag thing, missed I think a day of work, and took some pills for the pain. I don't remember it ever being too painful. The first 3 days or so were the worst as far as my whole gums and jaw aching, but really, it's not that bad. I mean, it isn't the pain part of the dentist that I hate; I can deal with almost any pain as long as I'm not in a dentist's chair. After 5 or 7 days I stopped looking so much like Quagmire from Family Guy and my voice returned to normal. After a couple weeks the stitches in my gums dissolved while I was eating a caesar salad (they're supposed to) and that was pretty much the end of that.
tl;dr: Don't worry about it. If you're scared of dentists, getting your wisdom teeth pulled is probably going to be the most relaxing visit you'll ever have, as long as you go with nitrous. Tell them how scared you are (they'll understand) and to pump it up, but do not try to get general anesthesia. Waste of money, and there are also a bunch of complications (you'll probably have to get a tube down your throat) that you don't need to deal with. A few shots of laughing gas and you won't give a damn what they do to you.
My dentist told me to. Worst advice ever.
I had the worst stomache pains I've ever felt for like a week. Couldn't sleep at all.