Regarding pain and how fast people heal is different for everyone.
I am now 54 but had 4 impacted wisdom teeth extracted in the early 1980s when i was 19. I suspect dentistry has improved somewhat even since then but besides almost having been killed on the operating table, I was out the next night at a bar dancing with friends and had a very slight yellow bruise but you really had to look closely to see it.
Unfortunately in those days, people were much more conservative then they are now. I however wasn't and was sort of dressed like an expensive punk for the time, a fashionable punk but because it wasn't conservative, combined with the fact that I was nervous about having an operation, in hindsight, we now realize that the doctor judged me and figured I must be into drugs, which was wrong, I never had been, nor was even a drinker, but he judged me for he was super conservative and I wasn't.
Thinking I must be into drugs, he apparently gave me too much of the anesthetic, I believe it was to much of a muscle relaxer. In any event, I remember having the needle inserted in my left arm with pain that shot up and down my arm immediately but as it did, I also felt a pain in my right arm, and light pain in my eyes. Thinking something must be wrong, along with just being plain nervous never having been into a hospitable before, I do remember saying t the nurse beside me that something was wrong.
She laughed and said no, you are ok and then she walked behind me where 3 or 4 other doctors were standing, I suppose looking at my records?
Suddenly I became paralyzed and was unable to move a muscle. At the same time I realized I had stopped breathing. Being paralyzed, I was unable to breathe. I don't know how long I was there but I remember a tiny bit of panic, wondering why so many doctors were behind me talking about some sports game and not looking at me, and then the idea I was going to die since i could not breathe but i wasn't that panicked. I guess drugs do that to you but all of a sudden my body started to jerk around and unknown to me I was having a gran mal epileptic seizure. No i am not an epileptic.
I remember hearing all the panic in the room behind me. Then suddenly someone inserted something into my arm and i started to breathe again. I remember sitting straight up on that table and yelling out, What and wanting to get right out of there and off of the table but they hit me up with something else, gently pushed me back down on the table and the next thing I remember is waking up suddenly feeling as if i needed to throw up, so i quickly sat up, turned to my left and t here was something there to throw up in and i did. As soon as I was done, I remember yelling out at the top of my lugs, What just happened? Understanding that I wasn't one to swear openly, it was odd for me to yell that out, but thats how stunned i was by what had happened and it was just a natural reaction.
Right away, there was a man there beside me introducing himself very quietly to me explaining that he had made a mistake and was sorry. He then told me that he was the anetheologist and again, was terribly sorry.
Once you wake up in surgery, then they move you to one more room where you gently come to and shortly afterwards release you, if it is day surgery as mine was. Well in my case, I was unable to wake up and stay awake so they kept trying but i kept falling asleep again. They finally gave me a "top up" of blood to bring me around as my mother was there to pick me up and m mother was quite an intimidating woman. I have to assume that they quickly figured out that she was not a person they wanted to have upset. I finally came to and we left. She could sense that something was wrong but didn't push until I told her on the way home to her home what had happened. So as not to worry me any more, she calmly told me not to worry and put me to bed. My body was so beat up from t he seizure that I cold not even put two fingers together to pick up the sheet, that was around my waist and lift it up and over body, thats how wrecked my body felt. So I slept through the night and when I woke up at about noon my body had healed and I was fine. Ate breakfast, lunch, dinner and right afterwards I was out with friends to a club dancing, and you never would have known I had had surgery the day before, despite all that had gone wrong.
So as you can see, one person with 4 impacted wisdom teeth can be put through the wringer as I was, yet 36 hours later was out having fun dancing,. And thats after having 4 of the wisdom teeth impacted.....yet others can have 2 Wisdom teeth extracted that aren't impacted and can be laid up for 3-4 days afterward, in pain, are yellow or bruised more. Everyone is different. BUT more importantly you don't want DRY SOCKET so for the first 72 hours, don't smoke, don't use straws for milkshakes, for example for the sucking motion, just as you do with cigarettes can pop out the blood clot which you DONT want happening and then you will experience pain that you don't wish to ever experience.
Good Luck all....its no where bad an experience as you fear it will be. Nor the recovery period!!
