Help me calm my nerves!!! Wisdom teeth removal...

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Replies

  • Kai85
    Kai85 Posts: 440 Member
    I got mine out last week! All 4 of them gone. I had very little pain, my surgeon gave me a prescription for strong pain meds for 10 days and i only needed them the first 2. I did look like a chipmunk! My face swelled to the size of a small country, but it only lasted 3-4 days and then i was perfect its not anything to be worried about. The thing i missed most was eating solid food! I got so sick of soup and mashed potatoes! It will be worth it in the long run anyway!
    Good Luck :)

    Oh wow! I've read weight loss can be a side effect of the limited diet? One of my friends told me that after a few days of not being able to eat solids she put a steak in a food processor! She has reassured me that I can borrow the food processor at any time. I'm not sure if I will take her up on it. Another told me about his severe cravings for a meat pie and eating it despite the pain!
  • Kai85
    Kai85 Posts: 440 Member
    Not quite the same but I had my 12yo molars removed and I was awake for it. It isn't that bad. It will be worse if you leave them in.

    I had four of my adult teeth removed when I was younger (12?). I have a small mouth! Gosh it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I remember sitting in the chair crying and my grandma took me and she was crying too. On reflection taht was probably why I was crying! It may also be one of the reasons why I am anxious now?
  • lelstar
    lelstar Posts: 374 Member
    Not quite the same but I had my 12yo molars removed and I was awake for it. It isn't that bad. It will be worse if you leave them in.

    I had four of my adult teeth removed when I was younger (12?). I have a small mouth! Gosh it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I remember sitting in the chair crying and my grandma took me and she was crying too. On reflection taht was probably why I was crying! It may also be one of the reasons why I am anxious now?

    I would say so, you were probably crying because you were scared! I did that when my aunt took me to church lol. There are a couple of natural things you can do for anxiety pre and post removal if you're interested.
  • EmCarroll1990
    EmCarroll1990 Posts: 2,849 Member
    I had my bottom ones removed at the beginning of April. One of them was impacted and had the same risk as you've explained. My dentist also said if when he had to take it out, if a piece of it was too close to the nerve, they'd just break the tooth and leave that little piece inside to avoid such risk.

    At the end though, they came out fine. The waking up process was AMAZING! I only remember this because my brother video taped the ride home and boy was I flying! Make sure the person driving you home video tapes the ride.

    Mine hurt like a b*tch and I took my pain killers regularly, I have a very low pain tolerance.

    Good luck, enjoy the time off!
  • gabbingfilly
    gabbingfilly Posts: 106 Member
    I had to have one of my wisdom teeth removed a few weeks ago. I had a tooth in front of it that was causing problems. Thing is, I am pregnant, so I could not be put under and absolutely could only do a local sedation. I was literally shaking when I walked in from being so scared, but I'm not kidding you, he had both teeth out in about twenty seconds! There was no pain at all, only a small amount of pressure. Also, being pregnant the strongest thing I could take for the pain was extra strenghth Tylenol. I never really did have a horrible amount of pain. And definitely put ice on it. I had no swelling or bruising. It's definitely no where near as bad as some people can make it out to be.
  • I had my upper wisdom teeth out because one of them became so badly infected it was horrible....but the surgery was not bad....and i was awake the whole time...i was sore for a few days later.....but all in all is was a good experience!!..hope this helps some
  • WifeNMama
    WifeNMama Posts: 2,876 Member
    I am the poster child for wisdom teeth removal. No problems, pain minimal, got one tiny bruise under my eye, that wasn't noticeable. Minimal swelling.

    Just follow the aftercare advice militantly and you'll be fine. Do not suck on a straw or blow your nose for the first day or so, so you don't pop out the stitches with the pressure.
  • Kai85
    Kai85 Posts: 440 Member
    Hi Everyone! Once again thank you so much for your kind thoughts. I thought I would give an update because I am all recovered! It's rather long. The short of it is it went really really well : )

    I had my surgery last Friday. They were running about four hours behind so they checked me in and then I had to wait all by myself (they didn't tell me this). I'm not sure why but they wouldn't let my partner stay with me and the place I had to wait didn't have phone reception. I handled it pretty well (the most stressful part was trying to take my toe nail polish off - do that before!). I had taken my iPad and spent the whole time watching the office which helped keep me relatively calm and even gave me a few giggles. The anesthetist came to speak to me and he was so lovely (and cute!). He discussed that I was young, fit and healthy (low risk) with a low risk surgery which meant I should be relatively fine - exactly what you want to hear!

    After that I went through to my bed and had to wait there for another half an hour. This was associated with a little bit of anxiety as I no longer had my iPad to distract me and I was cold and they had run out of warm blankets. That was a bit comical really. I practiced my deep breathing and was fine throughout.

    The orderly came to get me. This increased my anxiety a little bit. He asked me if I needed to go to the toilet and I said yes and then he started rolling me into the pre surgery room anyway. Then the nurse asked me if I had gone to the toilet and I said no and she stopped and let me go to the toilet - thank you nurse!!! After that they took me through to the pre surgery room. I guess this was where I got really nervous. More deep breathing and I was fine.

    Next I went into the surgery room. The orderly that took me there freaked me out a bit (at first I thought he was my surgeon because they looked a little bit similar and it just didn't feel right). He was saying you don't have a warm blanket why don't you have a warm blanket. The staff out the front don't know what they're doing. Not what you want to hear when you're going in to have surgery. I know it's just a warm blanket.. but don't say that staff in your own hospital don't know what they're doing!!!!! I pretty much lost my ability to speak at this point.

    Then I went into the operating room and it was fine but intimidating. The nurse for the anesthetist was so lovely. She made sure I had the warm blanket and then put this " heating pipe?" under my blanket to make sure I stayed warm throughout the surgery. Helped me to take my bra off because the other staff hadn't told me I was supposed to (something to do with the metal clips). Then we had a lengthy discussion about what sticking plaster to use over the cannula as I'm allergic to pretty much any bandaids/ sticky plaster etc. They put in my cannula and it went in really easy apparently I have good veins. Then I remember seeing the oral surgeon come in (which relieved me for some unknown reason). Then the anesthetist came in and they put the first lot of drugs in and I started to get "groggy" which they told me I would and then they put the mask on and I was out for the count.

    I woke up in the pre surgery room. There was another lovely nurse there. I remember having random conversations with her and I kept asking how long it had taken (multiple times!) - for some reason this was very important to me (about 50 minutes if you're interested). I had a towel/ice pack thing wrapped around my head and then we started talking about how it wouldn't stay in place because I had washed my hair that morning - and that was just hilarious! Then my nurse had ridiculously pretty eyes something I felt a compulsion to tell her over (and over?).

    After that it was off to my bed again. They handed me over to a new nurse who really wanted me to go to sleep. I had other plans. I was asking her to call my boyfriend to tell him I was alright but she kept asking me to sleep first. As my bag was there I decided I would call him as he had no idea what had been happening for the last 6 hours for a surgery that was supposed to take 1 hour (poor thing!). He came to get me and I was not a very obedient patient as I didn't sleep in the time it took for him to get there (10 - 15 minutes). They had run out of jelly and custard so all I was offered was water which she gave me through a straw! I pretty much was like no I can't drink through a straw I don't want dry socket but she made me drink it anyway. Then she said if I was feeling ok I could get up and get dressed. The nurse explained my post op care instructions. Then my anesthetist dropped by and said everything went well (after which I remember saying you didn't ask me to count and he apologised!) and I was free to go! I'm pretty sure I actually left before the person who had surgery before me. I think I must be impatient but honestly I felt great.

    My post op is going pretty smoothly. The first few days (three I think?) I kind of intuitively woke up every four hours to have my next dose of drugs (I was on a lot - endone, paracetamol, antibiotics, and ibuprofen) . Frozen peas were on my face constantly (20 minutes one side, 20 minutes the other side) - this was the best pain relief I think!! I had a limited diet which was mostly custard, icecream and meal replacement shakes. Gosh I like custard. Don't know how I'm going to give that up but it's too high in calories to stay in the diet.

    Day 3 was rough (the first day I was by myself). I woke up and I had a huge chunk of blood (I thought) behind my upper left now absent tooth. I completely freaked out and didn't know what to do and panicked. I became nauseous and dizzy. I put myself directly to bed and called my boyfriend and he came home to make sure I was all right. I called the surgeon and he told me it was the packing and if I touched it it would be stringy. He told me I just needed to rinse it and it would go away. This was a bit of a relief. I rinsed. However it came out and again I became nauseous and dizzy. I just don't think I cope very well with "gross" things. Calmed myself down and went back to sleep. My partner went back to work and the rest of the day was pretty smooth.

    Day 4 was when I really started to feel the pain. By this stage I have realised that my bottom right lip is still numb - "*kitten* this is what I dreaded". Fast forward to day 8 it is still numb but I have the majority of my feeling back however it is still a bit numb. The surgeons office called to follow up and they assured me it's normal and it sounds like my nerve was bruised. We'll see what happens. I'm positive the feeling will all come back as I can feel much more then I could compared to day 4.

    I think I had taken myself off the endone by day 5. By day 6 I felt normal I even went into work for an hour. One of the negative side effects was that I developed a female problem due to the antibiotics. Another course of medicine and probiotics and I'm fine. I would recommend taking the probiotic with the antibiotic to try and avoid that! I also had a little bit of a low mood following the endone.

    All in all. Much better experience then I thought it would be. Thank you for everyone who offered me there experience. That was mine and I hope that it may calm anybody else out there going in for wisdom teeth removal :flowerforyou: :flowerforyou:

    Next hurdle - braces!
  • Inmoni94
    Inmoni94 Posts: 1 Member
    Even I also had similar problem and it was difficult to keep up with it so I had to get the treatment from the dentist Torrance. There was the need of root canal treatment. Initially I was really very nervous but there was not any pain during the treatment. It went really well and now my nerves are calm.
  • lorri71
    lorri71 Posts: 95 Member
    I was a dental nurse and worked with a surgeon for 14 years and had an impacted unerrupted wisdom tooth removed in between patients under local anaesthetic! It was really easy and the surgeon was excellent. It is not always as bad as you imagine and the horror stories you hear. You may feel sore after so have painkillers on hand and drinking straws to sip liquids when allowed. Good luck.
  • manderson27
    manderson27 Posts: 3,510 Member
    I think the OP is probably well past that treatment as this thread was first opened in 2012 :)
  • Katmary71
    Katmary71 Posts: 6,482 Member
    Mine were impacted too and growing sideways. I remember coming home and going straight to sleep! Definitely take your pain meds if you get some. I was worried about getting dry socket as I stupidly smoked back then but it didnt happen. Get some mushy foods to eat for a bit. Stay away from stuff like chips so you don't RIP your stitches. Good luck, it won't be as bad as you think!
  • CharlieCharlie007
    CharlieCharlie007 Posts: 246 Member
    No worries. They freeze you, you feel nothing. take tylinay for two or three days, you will be fine.
  • TravisJHunt
    TravisJHunt Posts: 533 Member
    I had 4 impacted pretty good. I heard all the horror stories and people saying how bad of shape I'd be in. I was petrified. Also my doctor said we'd only do local since its safer and he's not a big fan of general for dental work. So after it was all done, all I can say is the smell from the cutting and the sound of the teeth braking was way worse than the pain. I was eating steak 2 days later. I even got unlucky and a fragment of the tooth that was broke (since they were impacted he had to literally break them into pieces to get them out) stayed stuck and got infected and that pain was way worse than the removal itself. Although even that was minimal and was instantly removed when he pulled the fragment out. So don't listen to all the horror stories, you could be an in and out case like me, eating solid foods the same day and chewy things within a day! I took a week off of work just in case heading into it and ended up with just a nice vacation instead. I never even took any of the Tylenol 3s they gave me as basic Advil did the trick.
  • 99clmsntgr
    99clmsntgr Posts: 777 Member
    I wasn't all that sore, was eating "real foods" (i.e. not mashed potatoes or other mushy, soft stuff) within just a couple days. Much like another poster, my upper wisdom teeth had impacted in my sinuses and the relief thereafter was wonderful and welcomed.

    My wife, on the other hand, had hers done a little later in life (after she met me after we were both post-college) and was miserable. Sore and pained for about a week. Worst of all, the oral surgeon who did the work had nicked a nerve that ran close by, just enough that she has reduced feeling on the front right of her jaw. Not enough to not have control of her facial expressions, just a numb chin.

    And if you're looking for soft foods for recovery, Wendy's Frosty is a good alternative, especially if pain meds make you sick. According to my wife, it tastes the same coming back up as it did when it went down.