Wisdom Teeth

[GoreBag]

Today was the day. I wasn't allowed to eat for six hours before the procedure to have them removed, lest I gag and choke on my own vomit whilst unconscious. Gruesome to keep my attention.

Anyway, I stayed up until around 7:30 and crashed after having a bowl of cereal. After making it to the appointment, I was hooked up to an array of gadgets not altogether unlike the everything-meters from the original Star Trek. A nurse entered and prepped my arm with some surgical tubing to make my veins protrude. It actually kind of hurt. Heroin must be quite the job to pull that off with only one arm with which to do it.

Anyway, the needle hurt more than I remember any needle ever hurting. The nurse suddenly adopted a worried tone and asked, "Does that sting?"
"Not really. Well, it does now that you're tapping it."
"Yeah...your vein blew."
"'Blew'?"
"Yeah."
"What do you mean, 'blew'?"
"Well, sometimes when the needle enters, it damages the vein."
"So...I'm bleeding out?"
"Uh...yeah. But it coagulates quickly. You're okay."
"I've never had a vein severed before."
She chuckled. "Not severed. A little cut."

I figured it was a laceration of some kind. Anyway, on to the right hand, which went smoothly and far less...achefully. The knockout drug they used was very cold - I could feel it course up my arm slowly. Again, a mental comparison with heroin was in order. I developed a body buzz within a few seconds.

The surgeon appeared as it was being pumped into my system. He asked, "How do you feel?"
"I'm getting a body buzz...and it's cold."
"A body buzz?"
"Yeah..."

I don't remember anything from before the procedure after that.

Waking up, though, was a different experience. I was angry - furious, even. I don't recall myself, but I do recall being told that I punched the nurse in my rage. Everything after that is me staggering out of the office, bleeding from the mouth and steaming out the ears.

----

Well, that's my odyssey. Someone else share?

[Ianofsmeg16]

I aint had my wisdom teeth pulled yet, but I'll always remember the last thing i said to the anaesthetic guys before my Appenidictomy...

"Wow, It DOES taste like salt and Vinegar..."

[Kralizec]

Never needed to go to the dentist for wisdom teeth, if I even have any (not everybody does)

The dentist did have to pull out 2 teeth of mine when I was 13-ish because they wouldn't fall out by themselves. The needle felt kinda stingy. The procedure was pretty much without pain but the sound of your teeth being torn from your jaw is unnerving.

Also had to go to the doctor once to clip away a piece of toenail that kept growing in. Anaesthetics of course, then doc proceeds to cut away wich doesn't hurt one bit but you know it should...and then blood. Lots of blood. He put so much bandage on it that it was like I had a tennisball growing out of my foot. Still it beats walking around with a festering toe with an ingrown nail, though.

[matteus the inbred]

i had a lot of teeth pulled when i was young, and the injections into the gums were the painful bit...it sodding HURTS!!!! then you wander about feeling like you've just had a bad trip for hours...the dentist was one of incredibly unsympathetic 'hates small boys' type of dentist that you get in English public schools.
my wisdom teeth have mostly come through but i'm hoping i won't need to have them taken out...well, not after reading all that anyway

[Fragony]

Ok now I am confused, in dutch it is called 'verstandskies' which translates into 'wisdomteeth', but 'verstand' is actually short for 'verre stand', which just means their position in the mouth.

Hey germaanse strijder, such wisdom in your sig!

[Ironside]

I've pulled out two of my wisdom teeth, both in the lower jaw and four regular teeth.

My wisdom teeth was growing so flawed so I needed to operate them out compared to only pulling them out. My dentist asked about choise of operation (I could choose to be narcoted, but felt that it was too much to bother with) and I picked sedatives, mostly because I was curious how it felt. It was interesting as even if you made you brain worked up, the body was like "Uhm shut up brain! Where's the bed?"

Anyway in with the needle with (local) anaesthesic and off we go. Unfourtunatly the dentist had to drill the tooth apart and pick up the roots to get it up. Not to problematic except that a nerve was just below the tooth, and that it just wouldn't be numbed.
So every time the dentist drilled I was feeling an extreme pain. 5 needles later (as the anaesthesic helped a little but hardly enough for that nerve) and a long period of unbearable pain the tooth was finally gone. It was a weird tooth anyway, it had an very small extra tooth attached to it.

1 week later it was going back to the dentist for the other wisdom tooth...



That went fine, the most painful thing was the needle with anaesthesic. Why you always pick the estimated worst choise first. The second time will always be better, or atleast should be better.

[Proletariat]

Do you have thick, exposed veins, NeonGod? Sometimes people who are a little more chubby or geriatrics with loose, baggy skin are much harder to stick than a young person who drinks lots of water since their veins aren't always visible. She prolly just didn't know what she's doing, though.

[GoreBag]

Do you have thick, exposed veins, NeonGod? Sometimes people who are a little more chubby or geriatrics with loose, baggy skin are much harder to stick than a young person who drinks lots of water since their veins aren't always visible. She prolly just didn't know what she's doing, though.

I'm 18 and slim. It may or may not have to do with her telling me to squeeze my hand into a fist repeatedly, how tight the tubing was...whatever. She was a bit of a wanker anyway. There seems to be no damage now, as I type this.

[Sardo]

I had mine - all four of them - surgically removed more than six years ago now, somewhere around 4 January 2000; I was 15. Rather than pulled out by a dentist, they were cut out before they even surfaced, so as to make sure they didn't distort the position of the rest of my teeth. Making sure all the money spent on the braces wasn't wasted, you know.

The worst part of the whole thing were the huge cotton things hanging from my mouth when I woke up, for the bleeding I suppose. It looked quite ridiculous, as I could tell from the boy lying in the opposite bed. Not too much pain in all, though, from what I can remember. The good part, on the other hand, was the pretty girl in the bed next to me.

And of course all the non-solid food I could have, in the form of pudding and the like.

One or two days later, however, my grandfather died. That kind of dampened the mood, I suppose.

[BDC]

Mine are coming in fine. I even when to the dentists to make sure they were.

So that was an anti-climax.

[Quid]

Wisdom teeth - yes. Never a nice experience. I had mine pulled over the course of two weeks. We don't do the whole knock out anaesthetics here; just the local one. Hence it took two weeks for the first two gaping holes to mend.

Anyway, one of my wsidom teeth wasn't really having a great time anymore and started decaying to the point of severe pain. So I finally decided to visit the good 'ole dentist and have the lot of them removed.

There were about 4 or 5 injections (I don't really recall; and don't want to) all from different angles. Quite unnerving, really. I had heard horrendous stories by my mum when she had one of those buggers removed. It was her fifth (!!!!!) one and not really growing as it had been planned by nature. Well, to cut this little anectode short, she left over two hours later - minus a little piece of jaw, one dislocated dentist's shoulder and the wisdom tooth.

Ok, where was I...right, you can imagine I wasn't exactly playing the macho. Growing paler by the minute. Hearing the revolting sounds and crackle of my tooth slowly being relieved of my jaw; not nice. After having had the 'difficult' one pulled, after about half an hour, I was given ample time to recover. Had I got up right there and then, I would have had to be collected be the dentist himself. I wasn't feeling great...at all.

Well, the other tooth wasn't much of a big deal anymore as I had already experienced the worst. So in order to clelebrate my misery, I decided to invite some mates for Mexican that evening. I know, I know, I wasn't supposed to eat anyhting substantial but you know, I WAS hungry.

Quid

[GoreBag]

I had mine - all four of them - surgically removed more than six years ago now, somewhere around 4 January 2000; I was 15. Rather than pulled out by a dentist, they were cut out before they even surfaced, so as to make sure they didn't distort the position of the rest of my teeth. Making sure all the money spent on the braces wasn't wasted, you know.

I'd gotten a colour diagram explaining how that process works. It's kind of funny how it works. He needs to cut your gums, then peel them back, revealing the jawbone, where he can then dig the offending tooth right out. Wonderfully inspiring pamphlet, that was.

[Sardo]

I did not need to know that.

Well at least I'm glad noone told me this before the operation.

I remember the little threads used to sew the gums back together felt kind of funny, too. Though they were of the automatically disappearing kind, simply gone after a while. I'm still not entirely happy with my teeth, or in fact my entire lower jaw, but since I imagine it would take some massive facial surgery to amend that and for some reason, people don't seem to notice anyway, I figure I'll just leave it alone.

[Ludens]

Oddly enough it seems that I finally (at twenty-one) am going to get my first wisdom tooth appear. There is definitely something growing at the back of my upper right jaw, but nothing at my upper left one. I don't think there is space enough at my lower jaws to accomodate another tooth.

Fragony, I always understood they were called wisdom teeth because they appeared around the time one came of age.

[lars573]

I had all 4 out at 18. My brother had them out at 16 and needed to put out and have major surgery like a pussy. I got a shot of morphine in the arm and had them out. After 8 days I yanked out the stiches. My friend who was with my was 'OMFG you pulling out your stiches!!!' I was like yeah so?

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I haven't had my wisdom teeth wrenched, but I did have to have 4 teeth ripped out when I was 15 iirc. They refused to fall out and were double-layered. Anyway the dentist gave me a shot of novacaine or two to my left gums, problem was I had one on the right side as well. It was a bit uncomfortable having the first three wrenched, but no big deal. The last one I could feel the whole thing, but the pain wasn't really bad at all. The thing that bugged me was the feeling of the cold metal device slowly ripping the tooth out.

I didn't punch a nurse or anything....

[nokhor]

i had my lower ones removed when i was about 17. one of the worst experiences of my life. it was a local anasthetic so i was still conscious. and it took at least 3 times as long as they thought it would. 'wow, you have really difficult teeth,' they even brought in a class of students [with my permission] to look at my procedure so they could see what it looked like with someone who has difficult teeth i guess.

[Reverend Joe]

I have only had two wisdom teeth removed, at age fifteen, and not at the same time- the dental surgeon really tried to push that one, to have them all taken out at once, but my father and I steadfastly refused. No way was I going without solid food for a week or more.

Anyway, the bad one was one wisdom tooth that had gotten caught on another tooth, and had subsequently stopped that tooth from coming up all the way. In my infinite genius, I decided to opt out of the knockout drug, mostly because it kinda freaked me out, and go for novocaine instead. What I did not know at the time was that dental surgeons are more like coal miners than true dentists. After having five or six shots of novocaine, not injected, but jammed, into my jaw, I knew this was going to be nasty. There was no pain, of course, but there was a horrible feeling of pressure, as the doctor wrenched one tooth into place, and had to pull like hell to tear the wisdom tooth loose; plus, kept feeling sick, so I would start taking deep breaths, but then the doctor and nurses would yell (well, not quite yell, but you get the point) "You're hyperventilating, you're hyperventilating, you're hyperventilating" until I stopped- but then I would get sick again!

The surgery was very nasty, and when combined with having not eaten anything all day, I went into shock on the way home, and vomited the half-cup or so of water I had drunk for breakfast onto the floor of my father's truck. Normally, this would not be a good thing to do, but considering my current state, and having had many dental surgeries himself, he let it slide.

[ajaxfetish]

I had all four out at age 16, before they'd grown in. It was part of a pain-killer study so we didn't even have to pay for it . I also got the general anesthesia, so I was out for the procedure. I remember my last thoughts beforehand, right after they put in the IV, were "I wonder how long it takes to take effect?" The feeling I had when I woke up finally made it clear why some people like drugs so much, at least until it wore off and turned to dull aching.

As for the next few days, all I can say is, "Thank God for applesauce." The least pleasant part was the hollows in the back of my mouth where they had been. Until they filled in a couple weeks later food would get caught back there, and I couldn't use a toothpick to get it out for fear of reopening the incision. Yuck.

Anyway, I was in great dental health after that . . . at least until that bike wreck in '02 made me have to replace a few of my front and center teeth. Much less fun.

Ajax

[Samurai Waki]

I had my wisdom teeth pulled when I was 17. Not a fun experience, and even less fun when you suddenly wake up in the middle of the procedure... I did learn one important lesson that day however, that I need a pretty large amount laughing gas to put me out, they said I didn't become irresponsive to pain for 40 seconds, which is the longest the dentist ever had someone stay awake for.

[Vladimir]

She did what to your vein? I've known a lot of bad medics but none have ever done that. Punched her did you? That would have been my first instinct after she told me that she made me bleed out into my rib cage. My procedure was fairly simple and they used gas to knock me out. Much like I would knock out anyone who severed my vein.

[Byzantine Prince]

I still have two gaping holes from two weeks ago when I had this operation. Crap keps falling in there and there is still some seafood that I can't get rid of. God when will they ever close!?!?!

[Ser Clegane]

I've pulled out two of my wisdom teeth, both in the lower jaw and four regular teeth.

My wisdom teeth was growing so flawed so I needed to operate them out compared to only pulling them out. My dentist asked about choise of operation (I could choose to be narcoted, but felt that it was too much to bother with) and I picked sedatives, mostly because I was curious how it felt. It was interesting as even if you made you brain worked up, the body was like "Uhm shut up brain! Where's the bed?"

Anyway in with the needle with (local) anaesthesic and off we go. Unfourtunatly the dentist had to drill the tooth apart and pick up the roots to get it up. Not to problematic except that a nerve was just below the tooth, and that it just wouldn't be numbed.
So every time the dentist drilled I was feeling an extreme pain. 5 needles later (as the anaesthesic helped a little but hardly enough for that nerve) and a long period of unbearable pain the tooth was finally gone. It was a weird tooth anyway, it had an very small extra tooth attached to it.

1 week later it was going back to the dentist for the other wisdom tooth...

Interesting - it was pretty much the same for me when I was 14 or so. The jaw-bone had to be opened to remove the teeth. The wisdom teeth had not even developed roots at that stage yet, so it was a bit tricky for the dentist to get hold of them to break them apart and remove them.
Each of the two "sessions" lasted for about 2 hours - quite a nasty experience...

[Craterus]

There seems to be no damage now, as I type this.

To your vein, or her face?

[The_Doctor]

I have all my wisdom teeth. One is out, two are half out and is not out.

I had to have 4 teeth out, then braces.

My top teeth are great. My bottom set are a bit great, except the front two that cross over a bit.

[discovery1]

I still have two gaping holes from two weeks ago when I had this operation. Crap keps falling in there and there is still some seafood that I can't get rid of. God when will they ever close!?!?!

In the back on the bottom? I had mine pulled over summer. The holes are stilll there.

Guess I should talk about it....

Not nearly as bad as the above stories. Had all 4 out at the same time. My dad pailed at that. The operation was done very early in the morning, so the wait to eat bit wasn't a problem. Last thing I remeber was askign what the red fluid was that they were injecting into me(well, I knew what it would do). Woke up at home.... Pain kept me up for a while. Twice even took the painkillers.

[Byzantine Prince]

In the back on the bottom? I had mine pulled over summer. The holes are stilll there.

The holes are still there!?!? Jesus man!

Is there any way to close the damn things once and for all, I somehow doubt they are going to close by themselves, and I quite honestly cannot eat confortably with them. Maybe the doc can re-stitch them or something.

[discovery1]

The holes are still there!?!? Jesus man!

Is there any way to close the damn things once and for all, I somehow doubt they are going to close by themselves, and I quite honestly cannot eat confortably with them. Maybe the doc can re-stitch them or something.

You get used to it, and after a while food just goesn't get stuck in them anymore. Maybe b/c they are alot smoother than they were months ago.

Did your surgon give you a turky baster type thing? Useful for getting food out. And rinse with salt water.

[BDC]

Mine are giving me tooth ache.

After reading these stories though, they are staying firmly in my jaw...

[ajaxfetish]

The holes are still there!?!? Jesus man!

Is there any way to close the damn things once and for all, I somehow doubt they are going to close by themselves, and I quite honestly cannot eat confortably with them. Maybe the doc can re-stitch them or something.

Mine filled in after a couple weeks or so. Having them last for months seems pretty extreme. I hope discovery1 is allright! The thing I found that helped was called a waterpik. Not sure if they still make them. It squirted a small jet of water to clean your teeth in place of a toothpick. My dad had one he'd got as a gift sometime before and I felt safer with that than anything else I could stick back in there. Man it feels good to get rotting meat unstuck from the back of your mouth. Uggh. Definitely a relief when they went away.

Ajax