Wisdom Tooth Removed – Ouch!

Yesterday I got to do something very fun. Ok, not quite.  I have went to the dentist’s office a few times over the years, and one of the things the dentist kept on saying is that I have 3 wisdom teeth, and the tooth in the lower left side of the jaw needed to be removed?  Why?  It is what is called an impacted wisdom tooth.  These type of tooths grow at an angle, and if you leave them in as you get older, you can except excessive crowding of your other teeth, as well as the chance for the gum to grow over the tooth and get food and bacteria stuck in it.

So what did I do?  I bit the bullet, and decided to have the wisdom tooth pulled out yesterday.  Thank god I only had 1 tooth to pull out.  This is what happened.

It turns out that I had to go to an Oral Surgeon’s office to have my tooth pulled out.  If you need to have more than one tooth pulled out, then the doctor will have to put gas on you, or you can take intravenous needle to pass out.

Since I only had one tooth to be removed, I didn’t have to do any of that. Yup, I was going to be awake since they will be using local anesthesia on my gum line.

This is what happened, and hopefully you never have to relive what I just went through.  So I went to the office, and filled out the necessary insurance paperwork.  After sitting in the lobby for a few minutes, I was called into the office.  The surgeon assistant took a panoramic x-ray of my mouth, so they could see the impacted tooth in question.

For lack of better word, I am going to call the surgeon a doctor.  So after the xray, I sat on this chair, and the doctor came and applied a small teaspon of numbing solution to the inside of my cheek.  After a few minutes, he then proceeded to inject the inside of my cheeck and the gumline around the tooth with the numbing medicine.  There I sat in the chair for a good 10-15 minutes, and I could feel the lower left side of my jaw turn numb.  I could barely speak, and if asked a question, all I could do was nod my head yes or no.

Finally, the operation began. The doctor inserted this rubber stopper thing into my mouth and told me to bite on it. This kept the mouth open so he can do his work, while the assistant at his side would suck up any saliva and pick up any bone.  The doctor then began to make an incision along the gum line.  Luckily, I didn’t feel a thing.  Afterwards, he brought out what I presumed was some kind of chisel like apparatus, and he backing hacking away at my tooth.  There was a point in time when he applied all his force onto my tooth.  God, I felt like I was going to have my jaw broken!  He did it three times, and then CRACK I felt the tooth shatter and part of it almost went into my throat.

Luckily, the assistant was able to take it away with the tweezers before I got a chance to choke on it.  When the doctor had broken that tooth, man I was just closing my eyes real hard wishing it would end.   Next, he then brought out this little circular saw, and he began to cut away at the tooth some more.  I was like, “Oh my god!”.  I could feel my jaw rattle as he went through the tooth to loosen it up, and then eventually he pulled out the whole tooth.

From start to finish, I want to say it took about 10 minutes or less to have the tooth removed.  After the operation was done, I was given an ice pack, and told to apply it in 20 minute intervals to lessen the pain.  There were also instructions as to what to do, how to rinse the mouth, what to eat, and etc.  Let’s just say that for the next few days I’m stuck on a yogurt and ice cream diet.  Yum.

In short, it is day 2 and although the pain has subdued, I miss eating hard food.  I try not to get food stuck in the hole *cringes* because it hurts when that happens.

Like they say, its better to have your wisdom tooth removed at a younger age.  If not, then it can get harder to remove as you get older, and the bone becomes more dense.  Sounds like fun, right?  Yea right!

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