Getting wisdom teeth out - share your xperience

[Erik S.]

Getting all 4 wisdom teeth out (3 impacted) next weekend.....share your experiences! I'm pretty nervous. Ill be COMPLETELY out for the procedure, thankfully....general anesthesia.

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[Chills1994]

It'll be a piece of cake.

just change out your gauze and probably gargle with warm salt water and you'll be fine.

[sfinney]

I wish I had been out for mine (all 4 also).

One of the top 10 things you don't like to hear your dentist say - "oops".

But the drugs were top rate.

[Modoc]

Do not report for Wildland firefighter training the next day!!!!!

Was not fun. Follow the advice on no straws (suction). A dry socket is not fun either. Other than that, it is a piece of cake, I went out, came too and my driver took me home .

[Pat Miles]

I had four wisdom teeth pulled 25 years ago. Other than that I've never had any other dental problems.

Pat

[The Antichrome]

Get your rx's before the surgery...have those pain meds waiting when you wake up.

[IMC87]

Only thing that was bad... Not being able to eat real food

[bbbean]

Oral surgeons are a wonderful thing. The worst part of having my teeth pulled was the hangover from the painkillers. The day you get them pulled, you'll go home and sleep it off. Change your cotton a time or two, at some point drink some chicken soup, and sometime the next day you'll get tired of sitting around and go to work or start doing chores around the house.

By means of comparison, we had a guy on the farm when I was growing up who wanted dentures, but still needed to pull a dozen or so teeth. He didn't have much $$, so he carried a pair of channel locks in his tractor (his "little babies") and would pull a tooth whenever it started to bother him. On several occasions, I saw him stop his tractor, get out, yank a tooth and go on.

Guys were a lot tougher back then. the oral surgeon will be a piece of cake.

[Avezorak]

I got 4 removed in 2000. 2 were impacted, all 4 had to be cut out. All I had was 1 Valium 20 minutes before surgery and local anesthesia. Even with that, I fell asleep right after the surgery and slept all the way home. Had some ice cream later that day and the next day left to go out of town for a few days. I took 1 Tylenol 4 and it made me sick to my stomach, so I just took advil the next few days. The worst part for me, and this was VERY painful for a 19 yo kid. I had just bought a BRAND NEW truck the day before the surgery. it was KILLER to not be able to drive it for a week.

Its really not that bad, 2 weeks after you will have forgotten all about it.

[Sarge]

All of mine are gone. The worst one was the one the dentist said would squirt right out. I had two army captain dentists sitting on my chest trying to pull it out. finally they had to get a chisel and bust it into 4 pieces to get it out. This was done with a local shot only. They told me just to take tylenol and go to work the next day. UH NO! I had to go back in still bleeding like a stuck pig the next morning. I had a cracked jaw bone and ended up on bed rest for three days. But hey, it was free!

[Shadowrider]

You really don't want me to post mine, but I'll give you an idea. Had all 4 of mine out at once (3 impacted, 1 very badly). The post about dry socket is spot on. I know this because I battled one for 3 months, with them having to go back into it to clean up the bone once (so it basically just started the healing over). If you have to have the packs for dry socket get the Bacitracin packs (antibiotic). That brown crap that they usually use made me almost puke in the doctors office. Oh and I woke up in the middle of it with the surgeon literally on top of me in the chair with me and the nurse behind me holding my head from behind. Didn't give a rats a$$ though, the drugs are truly that good. He just got down and turned up the pentathol a tad. My surgeon later told me that it would have been a lot easier if I had had it done when I was a teenager. The one that gave me fits also gave him fits. He said it was the most difficult impaction he'd ever had. I asked him "you mean all your patients aren't 37 years old?"

Good luck. It's not fun but you will live and you only have to do it once. I think I'd rather do that again than another deep scale cleaning like I just had. Now that just sucks. I hate Novocaine...

[a.roberts]

Had all four removed in December of '04, during my Christmas break from school. All were impacted, and they had to break them up to remove them, then do a little grinding on the bone for whatever reason.

They gave me some Ketamine and I was out in a few seconds. Woke up in the recovery room, a little sore, they handed me my drugs, and I went home and slept for what seemed like a week.

1) Listen to your doc

2) Take your painkillers on time (hydrocodone is your friend!)

3) Change your gauze

Honestly, I think it was probably as pleasant as extractions can be.

[HI5-O]

What everyone has said so far.

Do all four cause you'll never go back.

[Squishy]

Yes do all 4 at the same time. My Dr. said he would only do one side at a time and I told him no way do all 4 because I am not coming back.(3 were impacted) I can't take most pain meds makes me sick to my stomach.

[Corey]

Ice early, and ice often when you wake up.

Lil trick someone told me was put and ice pack or 2 on a towel and then wrap it around your chin and tie it above your head. Holds ice there hands free and you can watch tv or whatever. much easier than holding it there.

[Graham Smith]

I had mine out one at a time when I was in my 20's (that was in the 70's and they were all impacted and had to be cracked to be removed in pieces) The only thing I had was Tylenol III (codine), which I thought at the time wasn't going to be enough but I found that a couple of those washed down with a beer and a shot of Jack was all I needed to keep me comfortable (Actually, I only did that once the first day and slept for 12 hrs)

Basically some ice packs wrapped in towels are the best treatment. Carnation Instant Breakfast is a fairly good way to take in nutrition.

[Erik S.]

All,

Thanks for the replies! The surgeon is an MD and a maxillofacial surgeon, so he's more experienced than the normal oral surgeon. I didn't know to get the pain meds BEFOREhand. I hope they give me plenty of local anesthesia (novacain?) as WELL as put me out. When I wake up, I don't want to feel anything. :-)

I asked him straight forward if he'd been burned by drug abusers and shyed away from prescribing the good stuff, and he said no, he would be sure to keep me comfortable. The only thing I'm a little worried about is I have a fishing trip planned exactly 1 week after the surgery. I'm trusting that I will be able to make my own judgement on whether I'll be up for going. Getting it done on a thursday and have till Sunday night to recover, then back to work on Monday and leave Thursday for the trip. Hopefully there will be no complications and he does a good stitch job. Planning on filling a water bottle with saltwater and gargling with it several times a day while I'm on the trip....not even sure if I'll still need to by then. I'll have to ask the doc.

3 of my teeth are laying sideways behind my regular molars, one sideways and pointing a little DOWNWARD! The last one is my only normal wisdom tooth. I'm 25 and he said I'm right on the cutoff age where they don't want to do it (since they don't bother me).

[Sarge]

I'm 25 and he said I'm right on the cutoff age where they don't want to do it (since they don't bother me).

HORSE HOCKEY!!! I was told the same thing more or less. I think I was 30 years old or a little older when mine started hurting so bad my jaws locked up.

[Hi-Power Jack]

Getting all 4 wisdom teeth out (3 impacted) next weekend.....share your experiences! I'm pretty nervous. Ill be COMPLETELY out for the procedure, thankfully....general anesthesia.

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I've had dentists after my wisdom teeth since the Civil War:))

Forty years later, they're still after them, but I still haven't

had a single problem with them:))

From what I've read on the internet - there's almost no good

reason to have your wisdom teeth out, unless you own the

BMW agency your dentist buys from:))

You may be an exception, but take a peek at "extract wisdom

teeth" on the internet, and see if you want to proceed next

week. I doubt it -

If you're having severe pain or other

major problems, pls ignore this posting.

Good luck,

Jack

[CocoBolo]

At 62 I'm just not smart enough for mine to start hurting!

[Erik S.]

Getting all 4 wisdom teeth out (3 impacted) next weekend.....share your experiences! I'm pretty nervous. Ill be COMPLETELY out for the procedure, thankfully....general anesthesia.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

I've had dentists after my wisdom teeth since the Civil War:))

Forty years later, they're still after them, but I still haven't

had a single problem with them:))

From what I've read on the internet - there's almost no good

reason to have your wisdom teeth out, unless you own the

BMW agency your dentist buys from:))

You may be an exception, but take a peek at "extract wisdom

teeth" on the internet, and see if you want to proceed next

week. I doubt it -

If you're having severe pain or other

major problems, pls ignore this posting.

Good luck,

Jack

Ohhhh...I KNOW it's not pretty. Problem is, even though they're not bugging me NOW, they're cutting into the molars in front of them beneath the gums, so they WILL bother me soon enough. Not something I want to deal with, so getting it done at once AND asleep for it....Thanks for the responses so far!! Sounds like I'll live through it.

[RickRak2000]

About 10 yrs ago (I was 52 at the time), I was scheduled to have all 4 removed... one was impacted. The dentist said yank 'em all as long as you're there. So.......

The oral surgeon sez I'll be knocked out for 20 or 30 minutes tops.

Two hours later, I wake up to find that 3 teeth were removed... and with as much trouble the guy had... he decided to leave the last one (lower left) in.

So my wife takes me home, drugged to the max. When I start feeling things, I notice a weird sucking sound on both sides of my mouth. Both upper molars had roots that punctured the sinus cavity. I also notice that my tongue is now numb on the right side and I can't taste too well either. I try licking some ice cream and immediately I get a huge cramp in my throat. Needless to say, I'm getting pissed.

Next day it's back to the oral surgeon who really is acting like he doesn't want to see me. He patches both leaky sinus leaks and sez that the tongue issues were probably caused by a nicked nerve down by the lower right extraction site. He sez it should improve after a few weeks. It took 4 months for the numbness/taste issues and 8 months or so for the throat cramps to stop. My wife thought I'd never be able to stick my tongue out again ;-)

Not a fun experience, generally speaking.

Flash forward now to about 3 wks ago. I had an upper left molar removed (the one that was in front of the wisdom tooth taken out 10 years ago. The dentist again told me to have the oral surgeon remove the last wisdom tooth... even though it wasn't bothering me at all. When I went to the oral surgeon, (a different one this time), I told him about the problems I had with the first surgery and he said "Let's leave it alone. If it's not bothering you, don't worry about it. It's not impacted". Great! I say to myself... I'll just get this other molar yanked and I'm outta here.

This time it's a local anesthetic, so I can participate in the fun. After about 15 minutes of smacking and cracking, the tooth is history. I get my post-op chat and meds and go home. That's about when I started to hear the air leaking... The damn roots of this tooth had punctured through the sinus as well.

Anyway... the hole is finally closing up and I'll bring my "Teeth From Hell" tale to an end.

Hope you have better luck with your time in the chair.

[Coach]

I was 21. I was working for the state highway department during the summer. The crew dropped me off at lunch time. I got a couple of shots in the mouth. Had the four teeth cut out. I went back to work that afternoon and shoveled gravel most of the afternoon. I had some bleeding issues and threw up a few times, but did not miss a minute of work. I was on the clock anyway. I was younger and much tougher then.

[-JQ-]

Get knocked out

[Will_M]

I was knocked out during the procedure, and was conscious that afternoon. It hurt but I never even took any of the "serious" pain meds.

Just a little ibuprofen and some movies to pass the time. I didn't like the way the heavy stuff affected me.