Wisdom Tooth Chronicles: Part III

Finally, we’re finishing off the wisdom tooth recount with you guys! As I mentioned before, so often you hear of horror stories at the dentist’s office getting wisdom teeth extracted, and yet no one seems to relate their stories that were pretty good or just plain neutral. So, I felt the need to share mine with you so that you have some input from a relatively mild experience, one that is probably more on par with what you can actually expect if you’re getting your wisdom teeth extracted soon.

I believe I last left off talking about the local and acute numbing making my mouth feel unbelievably fat and clunky to the point where I found it a little troublesome to breathe and swallow, two things that you pretty much have to do all the time, especially while laying back in a chair while someone works on your mouth. You’ll be swallowing a lot during that time, and for the numbing to make it tougher, that wasn’t my favorite part.

The good thing about the numbing, though, is that I didn’t feel pretty much anything. The dentist popped out all four teeth as if they were nothing, focusing a little more time on the one that was rotted at that point. But I really can honestly say I experienced no discomfort from pain itself during the process and that’s what most people talk about after their own trips to get wisdom teeth pulled.

What’s more is that once I was done, I was free to go with instructions to keep the area wet, don’t eat anything hard for a few days, and I’d be good to go. While my girlfriend laughed at me trying to communicate to her at the time once we were on our way to the grocery for easy and soft foods, I was able to remove the gauze and cotton later that night and truly felt little to no pain.

The ensuing days saw a soreness to my sockets, but it was to be expected and honestly didn’t hurt that badly. Within a week I was pretty much back to my regular diet and found no troubles eating anything and absolutely zero pain from the sites.

Overall, I had a very average and easy experience with getting my wisdom teeth removed, and to me, that was a win. There was a little discomfort here and there and some soreness afterwards, but it was absolutely nothing compared to what people typically say about their experiences!

Wisdom Tooth Chronicles: Part II

As I was mentioning in an earlier article, the accounts people relay concerning their wisdom teeth almost always seem to have focus on pain, a bad recovery process, or fear going into the chair. I wanted to right the ship in sharing my story that really had almost zero negative aspects other than my own neglect of one wisdom tooth which began to rot. And as you should all agree, this was solely on my shoulders and had nothing to do with the actual extraction process.

So, once I got around to calling my dentist to square away a date and time for my wisdom teeth removal, I felt quite relieved to know that I was FINALLY penciled in to someone’s schedule to take care of this abomination of a tooth.

And then the day came. And it was time.

I’m the type of person that loves to research anything and everything, so I had done my due diligence in poking around the internet for details on the extraction process itself. I asked my dentist everything I possibly could once I had arrived, from things like how it would be removed, what my options with local numbing and even anesthesia were, and how long the recovery process would take. More than anything, I wanted to get those questions out of the way before having my teeth removed because I was fairly certain that I wouldn’t be able to speak afterwards.

That’s one thing that kicked in a lot sooner than I would have ever guessed during the process, though. The numbing. I chose not to go with anesthesia and instead received local and acute numbing around the area and then in the teeth’s roots themselves.

You see, I wasn’t aware that I would have the numbing administered and then have to wait 15 to 20 minutes on my own before the process began. And that was probably the most uncomfortable part of the whole thing to me: having a very numb mouth that felt swollen while I had to wait.

I felt like I couldn’t breathe very well since everything felt fat and swollen and numb. And I felt like anytime I wanted to swallow my saliva, I had a very hard time doing so because everything was clunky. While I knew to stay calm and that it was all a part of the process, I really would emphasize that this was the most unpleasant part of it all that I didn’t really have any warning about.

Wisdom Tooth Chronicles: Part 1

Wisdom teeth stories almost always end up mentioning horror accounts from the chair itself in the dentist’s office. You’ll hear about extreme pain in the extraction process. You’ll hear about people being afraid of the anesthesia if they choose to have it administered to them. You’ll hear about a 2 week long recovery process eating nothing but soft foods and soups, and then you’ll hear more about dry socket syndrome and having to go back in to the dentist to have that looked at.

Basically, you’ll always hear about stories that have really scary implications for those who haven’t yet had their wisdom teeth pulled. And as such, all high schoolers seem to be afraid of the dentist and their wisdom teeth coming in.

But today, I’d like to add a “it really wasn’t bad” story to the pile of accounts if not to reduce the fear everyone seems to have surrounding the topic.

If anything, the worst part of my wisdom teeth was something that I brought upon myself, and that was tooth decay. My bottom right wisdom tooth saw the most action in eating food as it grew in (because I always seemed to chew on the right side of my mouth). Over the years, I wasn’t great at reaching it with my toothbrush and really focusing on it. So, it began to develop a cavity right in the center. I didn’t worry too much about it.

That is, until it started breaking off piece by piece over time. It would become chipped, jagged, and even start to cut into my cheeks because I let it get sharp from it breaking off and not having it taken care of.

It got to the point that it would hurt all the time simply because it was dying tissue. And every single time the tooth cracked off more, it scared me that I would eventually swallow a piece of my tooth, cut my gums or cheeks more, or that the tooth would break off in a way that would be agonizing to me.

So I finally realized that it was time for me to call the dentist, set something up, and go in to have all four of my wisdom teeth extracted. The funny thing was, none of those teeth were impacted or below the gum line. Every single one grew in straight and had erupted just fine. All “should” have been on track to not needing to be pulled.