[haycheng]

I have all my wisdom teeth took out last summer. (8?) It lasted about a week, and took couple more week to feel completely normal again. It is not my most plainful experience but it is pretty bad.

 

[Sultan165]

After balking at how much it costed, now I am glad I had an oral surgeon do the extraction instead of my dentist. Even with regular anesthesia and the fact that the surgeon had to cut through my gums, I didn't feel a thing.

 

[averydonovan]

AFAIK, I never had wisdom teeth and plus my molars are a bit messed up and I'm missing 4 adult molars (I still have the baby ones) so dentists don't seem to want to touch my mouth except for fillings. After reading these stories I feel quite lucky and I'm not sure how you all dealt with having some of your teeth yanked and drilled out like that.

 

[timoteus]

I had 2 impacted wisdom teeth pulled about 15 years ago during the heat of the summer. I woke up with two nurses holding my head and chest down while the doctor was swinging a mallet into a chisel placed in my mouth. I remember one of the nurses saying "He's waking up!" After he extracted the last piece of molar they propped me up and had my dad take me by the arm while they escorted me out the back door.

The next day I got two dry sockets. That's where you lose the blood clot covering the hole where your molar was. That also means you now have a raw nerve exposed directly to the air. The doctor was working out his satellite office here in my small town. He only came to town once a week from his main office in the big city. I had to endure the dry sockets for the whole week with no pain killers while working 14-16 hour days in 110 degree heat. I lost 20 pounds during that week fighting the long hours, heat, and pain. At my next appointment he took a wad of gauze soaked in clove oil and with a forceps jammed the gauze into each of the sockets. It immediately killed the pain.

Besides this my jaw muscles apparently cramped during surgery. I couldn't tell at the time because of the pain of surgery and dry sockets so it took me a while to figure this out. I had to massage my jaw muscles regularly for many months before the muscles finally let go and returned to normal. It was like having a permanent charlie horse resulting in partial lockjaw. There was also the fun of jaw bone bone fragments erupting through my gums for a full year.

 

[Dweebgal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by djgustashaw How long does it take for the swelling to go down? I had mine taken out yesterday (Weds. the 21st), and my face looks like a pear. Tomorrow is my last day off from work and I go back on Saturday, I really hope it'll be down by then. I've been going heavy on ibprofen to control the swelling but it got worse overnight. At least I have no soreness... and the procedure itself was actually damn fun with the laughing gas!

'sup destistry buddy.

i'm having mine out on monday. along with all the jawbone sawing it involves.

not looking forward to it at all, and i have insisted on being fully sedated.

 

[LobsterSan]

One thing is that the tops come out relatively easy, while the bottoms are typically much more difficult to remove.

I had the bottoms out when I was about 11 years old. It took an hour and a half, and my mom forbade the use of anything other than local anasthetic. Fair enough, I contented myself to hallucinating that Spider-Man was dancing around on the spackled wall opposite the oral surgeon's chair. Anything to take my mind off the horrible sucking sound that occured when my blood was vacuumed away, and the crunching of the surgeon snapping my teeth to remove them piecewise. Swelling and pain occured for about 2-3 days, if I remember correctly. After that I was pretty much back to normal.

The tops were comparatively much easier. I had these out while I was a college student. The surgeon took all of 5 minutes. Only local anasthetic again, as my mother had trained me well. The process was so quick I didn't even know that it was finished. I was like... is that all? My girlfriend at the time was all set to pamper me after my "operation", but as I had no pain and no swelling, she basically just scorned me for being lazy and wanting her to do things for me.

So, in answer your question djgustashaw, if it's the bottoms or some combination of top and bottom, it may lapse into a day or two at work. If it's the tops, it'll probably all be OK. But if you get dry sockets you're most likely in for some missed work.

 

[john_jcb]

I had all 4 pulled the same day when I was 18. One shot of Novocaine for each. Lucky for me it was easy. Twist,Twist pull and out they popped. I wanted to go skiing the next day but to make my mom happy I waited one day.

 

[Born2bwire]

I've been told a few times that I should have my wisdom teeth pulled. Lacking the time and the funds I'm not going to have it done unless they start to be a problem and so far they haven't given me a lick of trouble. My dad has all of his wisdom teeth in, just my darn mom's genes that are trying to get rid of them in me.

 

[Dweebgal]

pay for it, it's worth it.

i thought the same (plus i hate dentists, mainly becuase local anasthetic doesn;t work on me, so i have to be sedated or be in agony) so i left mine for 2 years.

i now have a cavity in one, that, if it gets much bigger, or i knock it hard, will snap my tooth of at the gum line.

and it is very, very painful. there is no pain on this earth like toothache i swear

 

[djgustashaw]

Hell, have it done just so you can get the laughing gas! That stuff's awesome.

 

[RYCeT]

I got 4 wisdom teeth removed last year, it took 3 days for the swelling and took about 1.5 weeks for the pain. I also got 4 molars removed 3 months after that for orthodontic reason. If my dentist want to pull out more teeth, I might have to kill him

 

[daycart1]

I had 4 taken out with hammer and chisel. The procedure wasn't so bad. They gave me gas because some people get nervous about the IV. I remember grinning so hard from the gas that I didn't even get a chance to enjoy the valium before I was out.

I looked and felt great after about 3 or 4 days, so I started chomping on stuff normally. Both my cheeks blew up like baseballs and took about a week to go back down!

 

[warubozu]

I had my bottom two wisdom tooth removed when I was 18 and still have the upper two left. At the time my dentist said that the bottom two should be removed because there was no room for it and it will mess up the alignment of the rest of my teeth on my bottom jaw. He informed me the upper two could remain for now but if it comes out at an odd angle it too will have to be removed. Since I hate dentists, I had the bottom two removed and never went back to see if I should remove the upper two. That was nearly 20 yrs ago since I went to see that dentist. My dentist recommend an oral surgeon named Dr. Locke, with a name like that I wasn't too anxious to see him for the procedure. None the less he was an excellent oral surgeon and had me in and out of his office within 45 mins. During the removal of the bottom two wisdoms I was given lots of nitrous and boy I didn't feel a thing during the process along with some novacaine. It was a radical buzz inhaling nitrous. As for the swelling it was recommended that I take some asprin and apply a cold pack to the affected area. The swelling lasted two days for me.

 

[pennylane]

I was knocked out completely at around noon. I was eating solid foods by the second night. I think swelling was down reasonably by then. I was fine by the third day.

 

[PinkFloyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by djgustashaw How long does it take for the swelling to go down? I had mine taken out yesterday (Weds. the 21st), and my face looks like a pear. Tomorrow is my last day off from work and I go back on Saturday, I really hope it'll be down by then. I've been going heavy on ibprofen to control the swelling but it got worse overnight. At least I have no soreness... and the procedure itself was actually damn fun with the laughing gas!

rinse your mouth with plenty of lukewarm salt water (1 tablespoon of salt to 1 pint of warm water) and the swelling will go down pretty fast.