Wisdom Teeth

[cshollingsworth]

Hi Everyone...

I'm wrapping up my long President's Weekend and have started thinking to this upcoming Friday when I am set to have 1 of my wisdom teeth extracted. :( Right now, I can honestly say that I would rather know that I had to step foot on a plane than have this little procedure.

I have an upper wisdom tooth with a cavity in it. It's nothing major, but my lovely, life-long, very gentle-dentist wants to remove it rather than fill it. My dentist, like others, hates wisdom teeth. So...this is his sneaky way of getting one out.

My others are fine. All 4 came in really straight and are not crooked, impacted, or anything weird. I have room for them because I wore braces when I was a kid and had 4 of my adult teeth removed...the braces pulled all my teeth forward and left room in the back for the wisdom teeth. It's been like having a full set all this time...now I'm going to loose the top rear one. I'm not really happy about this as many people have told me that it hurts to have them removed.

My dentist says the top wisdom teeth are "cone shaped" and are basically like regular teeth and will come out easy enough.

Just wondered if anyone here has gone through anything similar. :cry:Just a wee bit scared! Ouch!

[Rebecca]

Hey, Courtney ... I couldn't help but think of Marco's wisdom teeth thread ...

http://takingflight.us/forums/showthread.php?t=4940

A bunch of collective TF "wisdom" on there! :grouphug:

Yours sounds like a scaled-down version of most folks' experience ... do you get anesthesia for just one tooth??? I'm guessing not ... I do wish you well!

[AZO-FA]

I used to be a dental assistant and have assisted in extracting teeth many times. It's a very simple procedure and you won't feel a thing. The worst part is afterwards when you've got swelling. I had all four of mine out at once and i looked like a chipmunk. You'll be just fine with one coming out.

[noflyingfan]

Courtney,

I was really, really scared to get my wisdom teeth out, but it was not bad AT ALL. I didn't swell much at all, and I had no pain. It sounds like your extraction is going to be about as easy as it gets (and it's only one tooth), so it probably won't be any worse than getting a filling.

Erika

[cshollingsworth]

I'm hoping that with just the one tooth, it will be nothing major. I had 4 regular, adult teeth taken out when I was wearing my braces and the same dentist that did those will be removing this one little lone tooth this time around. I got "laughing gas" when he took out the 4 regular teeth for the braces project, but he told me that he will just numb it locally when he removes this one on Friday.

I decided to have it done on a Friday so I can stay at home over the weekend and not have to really go anywhere or do anything exciting in case I might be swollen in the jaw or anything like that. Vanity, vanity...:lol:

I'm off to read about Marco's adventures with his teeth. :coffee:

[Jeff California]

I had two pulled and it took about 1 minute. I was so glad I didnt pay the extra $$ for laughing gas.....

[cshollingsworth]

I got a phone call from my dentist's secretary and she told me she was sorry to be calling me, but my dentist needs to reschedule me as he is going to be out of town on Friday with his wife. Apparently, he is flying to New York with his wife who has to go there with her company she works for and so, he is tagging along.

So, now, guess what? I get to postpone my fear of the tooth pulling until AFTER Don and I get back from Las Vegas. Gee whiz! I would rather him to just take the dang thing out now and let me stop worrying over it. Nothing like postpoing anticipatory anxiety.:rolleyes:

[JPenny]

You know what, Courtney? I doubt getting that one wisdom tooth out will be much of a big deal. Most of us probably had ours "DUG" out of our gums before they even came in—thus the swollen jaw and terrible recovery. Yours will just be a normal tooth extraction, won't it? Yes, I would have some anxiety about it, but it should be nothing compared to the SURGERY of having impacted wisdom teeth removed. Have fun!!!

Jean

[acuradriveronr3train]

I guess by now you've had this done. But it sounds almost like my situation. I only needed to have one out, the top one on the right side of my mouth. It was six years ago this Friday, March 9, 2001. Ironically, I had been begging dentists for years to take it out because it has always been crooked, and finally in April 2000, my dentist told me I should see an oral surgeon about having it out.

Of course, once I had my dentist's blessing, it took me six months to set up the evaluation appointment with the oral surgeon he recommended and another 3 1/2 months to actually have it done. I scheduled it for 2:40 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, figuring I would have the whole weekend to recover.

One thing I neglected to mention - my bottom wisdom tooth on the right side never came in. Back in the 1970s or 1980s, when I first asked a dentist about having that upper wisdom tooth removed, he said to wait until the bottom one came in because the bottom one would irritate the area where the top one had been. But in 1989, I had some kind of mouth x-ray that showed that my bottom right tooth didn't exist and would never be coming in.

My bottom left tooth took many years to come in. It was only part of the way in until I was 45 years old. Then suddenly, around Thanksgiving, it finished growing. I had a painful holiday dinner that year (1997). I remember thinking that my young nephew and I were both teething at the same time.

Anyway, I only had to have that top right tooth out. My left side wisdom teeth are positioned okay, even the one that took so long to come in. The oral surgeon did ask if I wanted them out, too, but I declined to have this done. One was going to be enough. Besides, I had only had that left bottom one for three years, and I wanted to "enjoy" it some more.

The day of the surgery, I went into the chair at exactly the scheduled time. (Somehow, this sounds like an execution scene.) I asked the surgeon how long it would take. He said he didn't know because every case was different. I decided to pretend I was on an airplane flight, since I always equate surgery and dental procedures with flying anyway. I wondered if the surgery would last as long as a flight to, say, Orlando (from Philadelphia). I only had a local anesthetic.

There was a radio on. These days, dentists don't play that so-called "elevator music" that has also been known as "dentist chair music". This was probably a current hits station. The procedure took such little time that it was over before the song that was playing when it started was done. (And, no, it was not one of those famous long songs like "Free Bird", "Stairway to Heaven", "MacArthur Park", or "Hey Jude". It was some 3-4 minute number.)

I had no ill effects either during or following the surgery. I had to go back the following Friday to have the stitches removed, only it turned out that they had come out on their own during the intervening week.

I'm usually a rotten dental patient, but this was not a torment for me.

[cshollingsworth]

Acuradriver...

Thank you for your post. I haven't had this done as of yet. I'm waiting till after we get back from Las Vegas to have it extracted. After getting cancelled on by my dentist twice, I figured that I could postpone it once myself. It's set to come out on March 23rd.

I am hoping that it will be the 3-4 min. procedure as you decscribed! :cool:

[acuradriveronr3train]

Acuradriver...

Thank you for your post. I haven't had this done as of yet. I'm waiting till after we get back from Las Vegas to have it extracted. After getting cancelled on by my dentist twice, I figured that I could postpone it once myself. It's set to come out on March 23rd.

If it's still on for March 23, I hope everything goes well.