sillypixie's Journal: Chipmunk Face (can I gross you out?)

Just had my top two wisdom teeth out.

While talking to the Dentist, he said that from the X-rays this looked like an easy extraction, although sometimes it turns out that there is a root that is facing directly away from the X-ray that can give trouble.

Ya. Well turns out there's one other thing that can cause your dentist to pull and pull and rock and lift and pull and remark in wonder that your tooth could be failing to yield to the pressure exerted by a full-grown man with surgical instruments...

Turns out that the roots of my upper wisdom teeth, which looked so nice and conical on the X-rays, were corkscrew shaped. On one side, the corkscrew had grown around the bone, and couldn't be extracted until that small piece of bone came away...

(grossed out yet?)

On the other side, I have some kind of nerve connection between the front and back nerve in my upper jaw. As a result, the dentist had to basically freeze the entire right side of my face, with more than twice the freezing than was needed on the other side.

The good news is that I'm numb right now. The bad news is, I won't be forever. The fact that they have sent me home with 600mg ibuprofen tablets tells me that life is going to suck for a few days. Scariest of all is that I have to take the tablets with food, and food is not something that I can imagine actually ingesting in the next 2 days....

The worst part is -- the lower wisdom teeth are in much worse shape. I hope they never have to come out.

FWIW...

[Shadow Wrought]

They didn't even try to "extract" my wisdom teeth. They were so impacted the dentist simply drilled them out of existence. Luckily I only had my bottom set, but for several week I had to use a syringe with a curved neck to water jet food out of the holes.

But I do you wish a speedy recover that's as pain free as possible. Take care;-)

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[sillypixie]

All I can think about is what it would have been like to have a tooth taken out 100 years ago.

Must have been horrible - of course it probably would have been less frequent too.

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[Shadow Wrought]

All I can think about is what it would have been like to have a tooth taken out 100 years ago.

I don't know how true it is, but I know conventional wisdom has it that in the Old West, there was much imbibbing of whiskey before the procedure. I'm reminded of Braveheart when the older Scot has to have the arrow taken out and they're feeding him alcohol. Another guy pulls the arrow out and the old guy belts him before saying, "That'll wake you up in mornin'!" One of my all time favorite lines;-)

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[SuiteSisterMary]

Remember that scene in Cast Away?

I had to have all of my wisdom teeths removed a while ago, but I'm terribly squeemish about teeths, as well as having a wicked gag reflex. So, I went to the Complete Sedative Dentist (my very own phrase.)

It was pretty awesome, actually. He gave me a little blue pill to stick under my tongue. A few minutes later, a nurse (about half my size) came into the waiting room and said that she'd help me to the dentist chair. I wasn't feeling anything, so I said 'No no, I'm fi

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[sillypixie]

My favorite thing about the process is the dentist would do something that obviously would have reduced a not-properly-frozen human being to a mewling, squirming pile of flesh on the floor, he'd look at me and say "ok?" and I would make a carefree little grunt, and they'd be off again.

Although I do feel like I've been kicked in the jaw this morning, given the intensity of the procedure, I am amazed at the body's ability to adjust. And you've totally freaked me out with the idea of being paralysed but f

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[SuiteSisterMary]

Take it [anesthesiaawareness.com] with a grain of salt, being an advocacy group, but I think the idea is that no, the heart rate doesn't change; you have to monitor brain activity.

One important question

[GeckoFood]

Did you get the laughing gas?? It makes even the worst of times seem great.

Heh

[elmegil]

I have several interesting, if not good, wisdom teeth stories. The first one was an ex-girlfriend who, when her face swelled up after the pulling of the teeth, I swore looked like an Oompa Loompa from the 1970 Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. This was not an endearing term to her, as you might imagine. :) My own teeth went all four at the same time, and they put me under general, thank goodness. My Mom's teeth came out well after she was 50, and had to be sawed into pieces and pulled out. Not entir

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[sillypixie]

Ya know, I feel reasonably good so far.

Maybe it will be ok... we'll see when I get up.

At least I don't have to be onsite at a customer tomorrow, so I can curl up and work in my jammies and feel sorry for myself if necessary :)

Pix

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

no food?

[tuxette]

Try protein shakes...? Use whey protein or a combination of whey and casein, or maybe egg if you don't do dairy. Stay away from soy...

Similar

[FortKnox]

All 4 impacted, top two in sinus cavity, bottom two in jawbone around the nerve.

They ended up knocking me out, then cutting them out. Took over 6 hours to get them out...

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[sillypixie]

Did you have any nerve damage? Also, did they take them out because you were in pain, or just cause they weren't where they should be?

(my bottom teeth are also in the jawbone, wrapped around the nerve, and I've been told that if I'm really lucky, they can stay there for the rest of my life -- but of course, if things do go badly, I expect it would be very bad indeed...)

Pix

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[FortKnox]

No pain... they were compacted, though. If they would have kept growing, it would have gone straight into the molars next to them. No nerve damage. Always got sinus infection, so he thought I'd stop getting those. He was wrong. But other than the 2 weeks of pain after the surgery, I only occasionally get a sore jaw (once ever few months for less than a day).

Ick.

[Some Woman]

Hope everything heals okay and that the pain meds work well!

[obligatory horror story] I had my 3 wisdom teeth removed this summer. They were all impacted, but it was fairly routine. Except for the part where I threw up a mouthful of stitches and blood clots 2 days later, which caused a hole to form between my sinus and my tooth cavity. Mucus draining into my mouth for a week is not an experience I wish to relive. It's been 7 months and the hole hasn't completely healed.