I’m really hoping for a thread about gross and horrible wisdom tooth extractions. I grew up hearing about how my grandmother’s dear old brother died from sepsis after a botched wisdom tooth extraction. Mine were pretty easy. My husband lost the ability to whistle and says that they hit an artery and it shot blood clear to the ceiling. Let’s hear them.
Sorry, I’m outta this thread.
Erm... I had all 4 extracted under anesthetic. Don’t remember much other than I had to be driven home. Otherwise... not much of a trouble, really.
Of couse, maybe the dentist was just a sadist. Who knows.
Only needed one Tylenol at home.
Only needed one Tylenol at home.
I was in the Marine Corps in the late '60s and periodically all of us would go to "clinic" to get whatever needed done by overwhelmed Navy dentists.
One of my squadmates came back with one eyeball still twitching up and down like a walleyed pike.
He said it started as the dentist gave him a shot of novacaine, and was just starting to return to normal after an hour or so......years later, I mentioned that to my private sector dentist and he affirmed that this can indeed happen.
Personally, I never minded going to the dentist; the dentist I had years ago was also a professor at USC and also taught some at UCLA - I'd accompany him sometimes on Saturdays for "show and tell", and get my work done for free. It just took longer than in the office, because 20 or 30 students would poke their little mirrors into my piehole after each step of the procedure.
As the daughter of a dentist I grew up helping him at the office and even assisting him at the age of 13-15. (yes, I was forced into child labor against my will, just kidding, I loved it) I could tell some pretty gross stories but I won't. I had 4 wisdom teeth out at 18 and all I can say is GENERAL ANISTHESIA! There is no way I would do anything else. If you don't want to be put out, try laughing gas or valium and have little fun. :)
I’ve had far more extractions than I care to think about. Don’t ask how many.
Only a couple were truly painful. The next to last one was the worst I’ve ever experienced.....and I can take a lot of pain.
I’m a patient at the UNC (Chapel Hill, NC) School of Advanced General Dentistry. Great care, great prices, all by young dentists attending a post-grad (and optional) program overseen by old-head, grey-haired senior dentists/professors. They’re wonderful.
So I had an appt. with my latest young ‘resident’, but that first meeting turned into an emergency extraction. I had what is known in the parlance as a “hot tooth” and was in some damned serious pain. The tooth in question had been root canal-ed twice......but damned if it didn’t just have to go.
They called downstairs and got me into a similar program....the oral surgery folks...immediately. I take the elevator down, in agonizing pain. I get a grad student who was a Pakistani woman who had been a dentist in her home country for years. She numbs me for the extraction but it was insufficient. Next thing I know, that wench is HANGING from my hot tooth trying to pull it out. Yes, her entire body weight. I felt every last bit of it. Never experienced that type of pain in my life.
I let her do it....God knows why.......and finally (after a lot of cracking noises and horrific pain) she yanks the offending tooth from my mouth. I breathe a deep sigh of relief, totally exhausted. Hurt like holy hell.
They weren’t through. A youngish professor comes in, looks at my x-rays, sees that there was infection in the jawbone under the tooth, and proceeds to dig it out. No numbing. Can’t numb infected tissue. He actually says to ‘em “let’s torture him as little as possible” and proceeds to dig into the ‘hole’ left from the extraction to pull out infected tissue.
I swear, to this day, that my hand/fingerprints are permanently embedded into the arms of that f**king dentist’s chair on that floor of Brauer Hall, UNC.
To this day I don’t know how I kept from decking the sumbitch. All I know is that I drove home and dropped into bed, totally exhausted.
I had 3 impacted wisdom teeth that need surgery back in ‘77.
They said they wanted to put me under. I said, “Can’t you do it to me while I’m awake.” They said, “Son, the things we’re gonna do to you, you don’t want to know about.”
So I went under. It took me a while to wake up. I didn’t want to...I rather liked being in restful half-consciousness. So it was just like in the movies with the nurse slapping me around to bring me out of it.
Finally I woke up enough to get off the table.
“So, who’s picking you up to take you home?”
“Um...nobody. I walked here, and I’ll be walking back. It’s only a couple of miles.”
“Son, you’re in no condition to walk anywhere. Call someone to take you home.”
“Well, the thing is, Doc, I’m new in town...just arrived a month ago and I don’t know anybody.”
They insisted that I leave in a taxi, which I did, although I couldn’t really afford it.
I bled for the next three days, with wads of blood-soaked gauze in my mouth, packed tight over my ex-molars.
When I went back, I asked them what they did to me. They said that my teeth were impacted so tightly that they couldn’t extract them with pliers — they had to use a chisel and hammer to break the tooth in half and pull it out in pieces!
Is that gross and horrible enough for you?
I guess it’d be better now, on the whole. 1977 and 2007 are worlds away in dental technology.
ALL of my wisdom teeth came in with no problems.
I did have one pulled a couple years ago because it had chipped and it was cheaper to yank than it was to fix.
You asked for it... Actually, mine (I had all 4 done at the same time by an oral surgeon, under general anesthetic. However they were severely impacted, and my right upper had roots that had grown into my sinus cavity. It took nearly 4 hours for them to get all 4 out.
While everything seemed to go well, I was given the normal instructions... No brushing of the teeth for a few days, no "swishing" liquids in the mouth, no using straws, AND NO NUTS IN FOOD!!!!
Well a few days later when the surgeon said I could brush my teeth, I completed the task, and as I was beginning my rinse, bloody, toothpastey water came gushing out of my nostrils! It sort of freaked me out, because the surgeon DID NOT TELL ME ABOUT THE HOLE BETWEEN MY MOUTH AND SINUSES!!!!! It was another week before I could try brushing my teeth again, and that seemed to give it enough time to close over and begin healing.
A few weeks later, I was at work, and someone brought in some home made brownies... I asked her about them, and she said that there were NO NUTS in them. So I had one... AND IT HAD NUTS!!! Of course, your sockets are nut magnets, and after just three or four chews, I had nuts stuck in all 4 sockets! OUCH!!! I had this little syringe for keeping them clean, but it didn't help. Luckily the oral surgeon's office was just a mile or two away, and I jumped in my car, ran over to the office, and ran in, asking for help. One of the nurses there took me back and removed the nuts from my sockets. And they didn't even charge me!
Mark
I was wide awake.
Had one shot of something in the gums and he grabbed ‘em like an 1850s dentist with a pair of tongs and twisted and yanked.
Didn’t really hurt. The issue was the little pits in my mouth for the next couple months. Had dragon breath for the first few weeks and my GF(this was 20+ years ago) refused to kiss me. I worked HARD to keep it clean, brushed and picked like a maniac 5-6 times a day..didn’t help keep the rotting food outta there.
It’s called Versed.
A little shot and the next thing you know, the procedure is over. All of the blood, grinding and trauma never to be remembered.
Several years ago I had all 4 wisdom teeth pulled on the same day. Pain meds/anesthesia/Novacaine don’t work all that well on me and my foreign (Saudi I think) dentist knew this and knew I was pretty tense. So he goes in to start yanking and says to me, “Don’t worry, Molly. My hands may be in your mouth but my eyes are all over your body.” What he meant was that he would be watching me for signs of pain/distress - but it came out so very wrong sounding.
They can take them out painlessly by knocking you out...Unfortunately suffering will still follow.
I so wish I hadn’t clicked on this thread. It’s like watching a train wreck, couldn’t turn away.
And yes, I have a cracked wisdom tooth that needs to be extracted. YEOWZA!
Dear Mercat: You sure called this thread correctly!
I have all 4 of mine, but know how to make the tooth pain unnoticable.
Place a big toe in a vise and tighten slowly and inexorably during the procedure. The tooth pain will not be noticed.