Wisdom Tooth Log: Day #1

Today I had my wisdom teeth out at about 3:00. In case anyone is interested in what it’s like, I’m going to keep a log of my experience. When you pass this way (the day will come) you’ll be familiar with what it’s like. My dentist is Dr. Greg Pitts.

I arrived at 2:40 and was promptly plopped in one of the operating chairs. The dental assistant working with me went through a list of warnings, recommendations, and counsel (don’t suck on anything, don’t smoke, etc.) and then hooked me up on nitrous oxide. Laughing gas is something new to me. My first dentist was my grandpa. His skill with a drill and an xray is superb (Dr. Pitts only realized I had fillings after I told him. In his words, “These fillings are beautiful!”) but he was rough in the worst way. I rarely took novacaine because the shots hurt worse than the drillings. Today was a new experience for me, then, since not only did I get laughing gas but he shot me about 8 times (that I could tell, I was pretty numb afterwards) and prefaced all that with surface anesthetic so I couldn’t feel much of anything by the time we started.

For those of you unfamiliar with laughing gas, it is a great anesthetic. I’ve heard of people get dizzy or pass out, but I simply went numb all over and was relaxed. They did it in stages too, so I was on a weak concentration to begin with, ramped it up as we got closer to extraction, and took it back down gradually so I felt mostly normal when we were done. The numbness in my face and mouth is very strong, so much so that I don’t feel any different than when we first numbed me up.

Now for the actual extractions. After taking care of a few cavities (which didn’t hurt in the slightest) he started to break out the extraction tools. All the while I was busy watching Ocean’s Eleven on the screen above my seat. He was working away, but the movie served as a fantastic distraction to what was going on. After about 15 minutes of him working, I started to feel pressure on one of my teeth. He was pushing incredibly hard, and I could tell he was working on one. I felt his instrument “slip” and he reseated the instrument. It “slipped” much faster this time. After a few of these “slips” he started moving his instruments and scaffolding out and setting it on the other side. I looked in the reflection of the black plastic on the ceiling and saw one of my teeth sitting on the tray. Wow. I thought he was having trouble popping the tooth. Looking back, those slips were actually my tooth coming out. Pretty sweet.

Now, it wasn’t all perfect. My right bottom tooth was pretty deep and, after a few attempts to dislodge it, he stepped out for a minute. He said something about “sectioning” the tooth (although I was too busy watching Ocean’s Eleven and too relaxed on the nitrous). He kept working with a similar pattern and  rhythm. Pretty soon after, the pile of teeth was a bit bigger and he was on to the next one. After the surgery I saw what he had stepped out for: a laser device that I presume he used to “section” (aka, split) my tooth with. I had no idea it was even broken up.

After removing the other teeth, they left me alone to come down off the gas. My dad was there to take me home and, after filling some prescriptions for an antibiotic and an anesthetic, I was home. They had given me two ice packs to keep on my face. Those are warmed up now, but I have another one from my freezer that I get to rotate every fifteen minutes for the next 12 hours.

So, it’s been about 3 hours after I got started, and the reality of the whole thing is setting in. Although I’m still absolutely numb, I can tell it’s beginning to wear off. There is a numb ache where the teeth used to be, and I can tell that Ibuprofin and I are going to be best friends for the next few days.

Here comes the gross part for today. If you don’t like gross, don’t read on. I’m writing the following as I want to be honest about the whole wisdom tooth experience.

So, the one thing you don’t hear about is all the blood involved. Now, I knew that teeth were rooted right next to a rich blood supply and nerves, sometimes even being intertwined with them. Fortunatlely I didn’t have any complications because of this anatomy, but it does mean that when you get your wisdom teeth out that it both hurts a lot because of the proximity of the nerve and it bleeds a lot because of the blood supply. You hear about the pain, but you don’t hear about the blood. So, I have two wads of gauze in my mouth which replaced two other wads that the dentist gave me. I’ll probably be changing these wads when they become as saturated as the others with blood. I can’t open my mouth as it is slowly filling with a bloody-spit mixture which I expectorate out every 10 minutes or so. They say this bleeding will last for the next 3 days or so. I also have four suchers (aka, really strong stitches) closing the sockets up. The suchers are going to be removed this time next week as well as to make sure things are healing well.

That’s basically it for my first day. Tomorrow will be chapter two, including, sleeping without four teeth.