Wisdom teeth extraction–Week 1

I can’t even remember when the two wisdom teeth on the right side came out. I felt no pain and only noticed them, when I felt that the other two are trying to come out. I guess I was lucky… but not so lucky with the other two unfortunately.

I’ve been waiting and hoping for three years that the two wisdom teeth on the left will come out fine and I won’t need to pay a visit to the dentist. I hate dentists! But then again, who doesn’t…

Two years ago I had to go to the dentist for another problem. She sent me to get the wisdom teeth x-rayed and I was happy to hear that they’re growing out straight so we don’t need to pull them out.

On my last day of vacation in August this year my left ear started ringing. We hurried home and went straight to the doctors’ office. The diagnostic was terrible: I had tinnitus. Four days of hell followed… I had to go every day to the hospital for infusions and cortison shots. My tinnitus got better but it didn’t go away completely. I had a constant sound, sort of like a wave, and a ringing sound that came and went.

I had a hunch that this ear problem was caused by the wisdom teeth so on my next visit to the dentist in September, I asked if it’s possible but unfortunately no one knows what causes tinnitus. We made another set of x-rays and the dentist compared it to the ones from 2009. The wisdom teeth haven’t moved. The upper one was still completely under the flesh and the lower one was partially errupted and started to gather bacteria under the flesh. Obviously I was advised that both teeth had to be removed.

I knew what had to follow but I took my time to fight my fear and get used to the idea that I have to undergo surgery to have them removed. I gathered my courage in November and searched for a doctors’ office specialized for removing wisdom teeth. I was so nervous on the first appointment that I was shaking. The nurse took another x-ray and announced that I shouldn’t get my hopes up, I will probably lose my wisdom teeth.

The doctor was a very nice lady. As soon as she started talking, I felt calm and relaxed. She explained that three wisdom teeth have to be taken out: two which are trying to come out and the upper one on the right because it’s too far behind and there’s no tooth below to bite on. I was completely in shock, I expected that the two have to be removed but why the third? Oh well, doctor knows best and it was all the same for me if it’s 2 or 3, it’s going to hurt anyhow… so eventually I agreed and we set the date.

Two weeks of constant worry followed. I was really scared but in the last days I started feeling relieved. I have spent three years of my life feeling that pain where the tooth was trying to come out and the pressure between the teeth because the wisdom tooth was pushing on the other teeth. I wanted this to be finally over!

On the night before the operation I slept like a baby. In the morning I had a rich breakfast, prepared ice and food (fruit puree and such) upfront so I was ready to do this.

We arrived to the doctors’ office on time but had to wait half an hour. That was the hardest time I had to endure that day. As soon as they were ready to receive me, I jumped in the seat, turned on the internet radio on my iPhone and closed my eyes. They gave me several shots to numb the area but I hardly paid any attention. I trusted the doctor and I knew that it will be better when I have them out.

It didn’t even take one song and the first tooth was already out. The nurse was constantly checking up on me, asking me if I was ok and explaining what I should expect (pulling, pushing…). It took about 15 minutes and I was all done. The doctor was in a pretty good mood, she even told me to have one last look at my teeth and say good bye to them.

They put gauze pads on the wounds and I had to close my mouth to press it strong on the wound to stop the bleeding. I also got cold compresses to hold on my face to prevent swelling.

After picking up the pain killers they prescribed from the farmacy, I was taken home. I felt pretty good. I changed the gauze pads, took fresh ice packs and put a DVD in. I think I watched several cartoons that day, they cheered me up and helped me not think about the whole teeth thing.

It took several hours till the bleeding stopped and that numbing feeling went away but by the time it was evening, I felt pretty ok, still no pain. I took a pain killer before going to bed just in case it would start during the night. I didn’t want to wake up in pain. I set an alarm every 6 hours to take a pain killer. After two days I took pain killers every 8 hours and I stopped completely after the fifth day because I wasn’t in pain. I’m not sure if it was because of the pain killers or something else but I haven’t really felt any big pain through the entire first week.

I haven’t eaten anything on the first day. I didn’t have any appetite and I was also afraid that I could damage the wound. On the second day I started eating fruit purees by placing a bit on my tongue and quickly swallowing it. I wasn’t allowed to eat any kind of milk products or warm food in the first three days so I didn’t have many choices for the first days. On the fifth day I started eating soft cooked food like potato puree and Hungarian stuffed pepper.

I was advised not to brush my teeth or rinse on the first day. Starting from the second day I brushed and rinsed carefully after each meal.

I put ice packs during the day for three days. The left side of my face where they removed two teeth was swollen on the second day and it reached its peek on the third. From the fourth day it went down and by day 7 I looked normal again. The right side didn’t get swollen at all.

I think the most annoying were the stitches. I couldn’t open my mouth that well because I felt the stitches pulling. Also I think the upper right came partially out because one side was hanging loose close to the entrance to my throat which made me fill sick until I figured out to push it away with my tongue.

All in all, the surgery and the first week of recovery wasn’t as bad as I expected. I was scared and worried for no reason. I’m glad I decided to do this and I hope that everything will go well till I’m fully recovered. Plus I noticed a slight improvement in my tinnitus too, it’s not ringing as often as before… so it seems that the wisdom teeth might have been one of the many factors that caused it.