Getting my wisdom teeth removed

glithert

So a few days ago my dentist tells me that all four of my wisdom teeth are growing in crooked and need to be removed. I've never had any kind of dental surgery done. In fact, I've never even had a cavity.
So, what does this entail? Is it painful? Will I be unable to eat solids for a week?

dispatch.o

It entails getting a dose of something that makes you fall asleep, then waking up sort of wobbled and off-kilter and eating some soup and jell-o.

If you follow the advice of the doctor and don't use straws, the substantial pain is gone within two days, and you just feel like poking at the holes with your tongue a lot even though it hurts a little and feels funny. Really, these people do this for a living and in the event you do have more pain, they can phone in extra doses of a pain medication.

Quite honestly the surgical part of it will be fun for you. Anesthesia isn't some new contraption. You'll hear "Here comes your cocktail!" and you'll wake up at home on the couch feeling pretty high. Once the general anesthetic wears off your mouth will be numb for hours from the local anyway, so enjoy the semi-drunk wheeeeeee! feeling.


Have they broken skin yet? Or are they being cut out?

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Bartholamue

I've had a tooth pulled (for braces) and I think it's not that bad a procedure (although for yours, you have four times the teeth to take out). The doctor injects you with some anesthetic (or will it be the gas? It might be the gas because you have four to be taken out and not just one). It will take awhile, and after the anesthetic wears off, it will hurt, but he will prescribe something for you to take, or s/he will get you to put ice on it, so the pain won't be as noticeable. You will have to be careful with what you eat, because if you get something in the wounds, it will be very hard to get out (I wouldn't suggest eating peas, either). Just relax, and listen to what the people working there have to say, and you will get through it with no problems.

Godfather

DO NOT SLEEP ON YOUR BACK AT NIGHT

Seriously, I had all four of my wisdom teeth taken out simultaneously the day after Christmas in '06, and the doctor forgot to tell me this. Open wounds = drainage, and I had the worst night of sleep in my life.

It got so bad at one point that I barely made it to the toilet, where I threw up straight blood four times in a row.

I thought I was gonna die, I swear.

The_Glad_Hatter

There JUST was a huge wisdom teeth thread.. Look back a couple of pages and you'll find it..

DarwinsFavoriteTortoise

Godfather wrote: »

DO NOT SLEEP ON YOUR BACK AT NIGHT

Seriously, I had all four of my wisdom teeth taken out simultaneously the day after Christmas in '06, and the doctor forgot to tell me this. Open wounds = drainage, and I had the worst night of sleep in my life.

It got so bad at one point that I barely made it to the toilet, where I threw up straight blood four times in a row.

I thought I was gonna die, I swear.

Eh I don't know. Did you use a lot of gauze?

I had four removed last year, and on my back was the only way I could sleep (your cheeks will be very sore).

FightTest

Here is exactly how it will happen:

You will be too much of a pussy to let them do it while awake so you will go the general anesthesia route. The dentist will give you a tiny envelope with a couple tranquilizer-type pills to mellow you out if you freak out before having to come in. (You will not need them and later at a 4th of July party a friend will try to get you to give them to him so he can use them recreationally. You will decline and end up throwing them in the street.)

On the day of removal you will have a person drive you to the dentist's place and you will go into the room and sit in a chair. There will be a dentist and an assistant. They will put an IV into your arm. At some point you will think you feel sort of strange and you will ask them if they put something into the IV. They will ask you if you feel anything, and you will say that you think so.

You will then wake up completely disoriented and with a mouth full of gauze. After a few minutes your person will drive you home while you babble incoherently through the gauze in a drug-induced stupor. Shortly after arriving home you will then feel nauseous from swallowing blood during the removal, but consuming some Jell-O will make you feel better.

You will not need any further pain medication as it is not that bad. Approximately 10 years later you will make a post on a video game message board detailing your experience, the most memorable part being that you were given anesthesia without any warning and went from wondering if you felt something to waking up in a little recovery bed.

ihmmy

I second the not sleeping on your back, just because old blood tastes naaaasty. I slept at about a 45 degree angle with a schwackload of blankets and pillows behind me to keep me propped up, and a cup beside me to, uh, take care of the excess blood with. You aren't supposed to spit per se, because that involves suction in your mouth which may lead to dry socket, which is paaaain. Also check with your dentist as to how long you should leave the gauze in (not overnight, typically).

I lived off of yogurt, apple sauce, juice, mashed potatoes n gravy, and crackers that get all melty and soft in your mouth for the the first week or so, but it also took me a bit longer to heal up than is the norm I think.

Shazkar Shadowstorm

though i'm pretty sure they prescribed me some vicodin or percocet or something of the sort

didn't use much of it though

hmmm wait a sec....

Aegis

Since they give you anaesthesia it won't be painful, however (in my case) if the dentist is really, really efficient then the stuff that knocks you out will wear off just before he's finished with the last tooth so you'll be up and about when he's just done.

You'll probably end up on soup and the like for a bit. And they'll probably explain to you/your parents how to clean out the wounds with a solution. It's a pain in the ass, but only necessary for a little while. The stitches are also a pain in the ass, but similarly they don't last long.

Though you are lucky in that you get them all out in one go!

Liquid Hellz

Get the gas man, don't be a pussy. It's cheaper and there is less risk of death. They will inject you with novocain and wait a bit and then come in and hit your teeth and ask you if you feel anything. Just say yes even if you don't and they will inject you again. You are totally numbface now, then they will put the oxygen mask on and fill it with nitrous oxide. If you don't feel anything for a minute ask them to turn it up, in a few min you will be laughing your ass off. They will be ripping your teeth out the whole time while you are laughing and the doctors and nurses are laughing at you. Its a fun time, I laughed non stop until I got home. When the novicaine started wearing off I took some advil and vicoden or whatever they gave me and fell asleep. Woke up sore and puffy the next day but no real pain.

In summary, get the gas and have some fun.

Retox

If you are me, a nurse will stick a needle in your arm and you will then spend 20 minutes explaining in detail the feeling of being put under to a disinterested and increasingly annoyed doctor. You will then pass out for a short while and wake up while they are in the process of pulling out your third tooth. In your drugged state you will remove their hands and tools from your mouth so that you can explain to them that two of your teeth have been removed and two remain. They will put a towel over your face and tell you not to talk anymore. You will not listen.

Afterwards you will refuse to leave the chair until you have finished singing “She’s Gonna Break Soon” by Less Than Jake, and then you will jump down a flight of stairs to prove how awesome you are. Your mother will not be amused by either of these. At home you will chew on tea bags to stop the bleeding and drink a delicious milkshake. Several days later your mouth will stop hurting and life will return to normal.

cncaudata

Important: Check if your insurance company will cover general anesthesia. I think mine would only do so if the teeth were "impacted", so find out from your doctor if your case meets the criteria (sounds like it will if they are coming in crooked).

I had a really strange time when my teeth were removed. I went to sleep in the chair and woke up in my basement, with no recollection of waking, leaving the dentist, walking to the car, going to the pharmacy (someone was there to drive me, this is required), or coming home.

Also, they will prescribe drugs. This is a good thing.

Dog

I had a terrible experience getting my wisdom teeth out, if only because the stitches they put in that are supposed to fall out on their own never did and they became incredibly painful and one of them ended up getting infected which became even more incredibly painful.


Otherwise A++ would pull again.

GrimReaper

Urgh, I am having a wisdom tooth taken out in August. (already had the top two taken out)

Here's what the NHS surgeons told me:

Because it's up against the nerve and at an angle it's going to be difficult to take it out, as such we're going to cut open your gum and break it off in two pieces. Because of the difficulty involved for this single tooth it may take more than 30 minutes for this operation. You also may end up with partial or permanent nerve damage resulting in numbness in part of your tongue/lower face.


I got a letter in the post a while back to go to the NHS teaching hospital in my home town, I thought it was some kind of pre-op check up before they arranged the big operation.

However, it was the day of the operation.. surprise motherfucker, even though we didn't mention it at all in the letter we sent you!

I'd originally opted for a local anaesthetic, so i'm at the point where i've gotten the injections and been given some lucozade to keep up my blood sugar levels during the op.. at this point I hadn't had anything to eat that day and I think the local anaesthetic or the lucozade went straight to my head because I started feeling woozy, lightheaded, sick and sweating like mad.

According to the doctor I went very pale indeed, at which point they tell me "look, we can re-arrange for a different date.. especially since the letter wasn't very clear, the last thing we want is for you to be sick or worse half way during the operation." (i'd mentioned the letter)

So at that point I went "ok, i'm out of here". I re-arranged for August. The above happened last week on Thursday. I felt sick all day because of that.

Thank fuck for the NHS though, they had a team of surgeons in there. I think because of me deciding against the op at the last moment I probably cost the NHS a few thousand pounds. I'd dread to think what it'd be like if I went private for something like that.