August 18, 2005

• The best thing you can do is to sleep if you are able. Make a nice smoothy for your nutritional needs.
• I don't have any advice on pain killers but for the two major oral surgeries that I have had, I found that eating foods such as chocolate pudding and mashed potatoes were tolerable. Nothing spicy, acidic, or salty is the key. And of course, as you mention, room temperature always! Oh, and for some reason, Chef Boyardee Spaghettios. I would never eat them normally but slightly heated, they slip down easily and the tomato sauce isn't acidic enough to cause further discomfort, probably due to the sugar they add to it.
• I regularly rinsed my mouth out with a strong salt solution (counter to kittenhead's warning), per my dental surgeon's instructions, to keep schmutz from settling in and around the incisions to promote healing. It seemed to help. So did the Percocets. I was only really out of commission for a couple of days.
• I've had several bouts of dental surgery and the best advice I was given was frequent saline rinses - a teaspoon of salt in a glass of warmish water. It eases the pain somewhat but mainly it promotes rapid healing. For pain medication I usually rely on dark rum, neat but that may not apply in your case. May a coldpack over the affect area (or a bag of frozen peas)? For food, scrambled eggs and bananas - not necessarily together. Hope yer feeling better soon.
• Clove oil is my favorite. The bottle lasts a long time too. The trick is just don`t swallow it, or anyways as little as possible. Swab with cotton swab. It works just as well if not better than those topical oral gels with benzocaine.(plus I love the smell of clove oil. Oh, and room temp yogurt,, vanilla is my fav.
• I'd second the mouth rinses. Baking soda in water should work well too. Your mouth should heal very quickly. I had 4 wisdom teeth done at once, and the major pain was over in a couple days.
• Oh, you want gross? Here, listen to *my* wisdom tooth story. . . So here it is: I show up at the dentist's office. His receptionist is gone for the day so it's just me and the dentist and the assistant. The cute, sexy young assistant. . . So I get into the chair, he turns on the gas, I'm *flyin* baby, I'm so happily high. Oh, forgot an important part: the X-ray. So he x-rays my mouth to get an idea of what he's going after in the old mouth a roonie and gee, whaddya know, it's a *tooth with a root bent at a 90 degree angle*. It's at this point I start noticing a bit of sweat on the upper lip of the dentist. Hmmm, maybe it's just the light, ignore it, hop in the chair, oogle the pretty young assistant's pert young breasts, smile, inhale a bit more nitrous oxide... Ahhhhh... So he gets to work, shoots me up with a painkiller, 'You're going to feel a bit of pressure, there's no pain, it's just *pressure*. *AAAAArrrrrrggghhhhhhhh!!!* Screw that it's friggin *major* pain!!! So he breaks the tooth off midway, I hear the bone snap and I'm like 'What the f**k?'. 'It's only pressure, nothing to be concerned about, it's just pressure...' So it's about this point I lose interest in the pert breasts of the pretty assistant and wonder just what the hell is going on here... Yeah, pressure, I'm really feelin' it now, that pressure... So then he tells me he's gotta cleave the root. Cleave the root? Like split my broken tooth down the middle? That kind of 'cleave the root'? Yup, exactly that. So he does something that crushes or otherwise breaks my tooth and at this point the pretty assistant excuses herself for a moment. A moment turns into a minute. A minute turns into several. The dentist notices and excuses himself. I'm there alone in the room, mouth propped open, dental dam hanging out of my face, no pert young breasts to concentrate on to take my mind off the pain...(Oh, I forgot, there's no pain, only *pressure*). So the dentist comes back in 'Oh, I'm so sorry, my assistant, you know, the one who's pert young breasts you keep staring at, she went into the next room and *passed out*. Turns out she's pregnant and with the cleaved root and the googling eyes it was too much for her. S**t. So the dentist finishes up, gets the rest of the tooth out and... The story's not over yet. Then I go see another doctor immediatly after. About the bone spur in my foot. He wants to inject a steroid to lessen the pain. Okay, sounds good to me... He pulls out a hypodermic they could use to pierce the skin of an elderly rhino... He looks at my big toe. He looks at the joint on my big toe. He places the needle directly over the joint of my big toe and presses down. Hard. Into the joint. Then he squirts. My mouth is still in pain, but now I'm not thinking about that anymore. I'm looking at a friggin' needle big enough to lance a Zulu and it's sticking out of my big toe. Then he pulls it out. No more pain! In my big toe. My mouth still feels like somebody whacked it with a sledgehammer though. And so ends my story of Wisdom tooth woe.
• I had my wisdom teeth removed waaaay back in the day, so I don't remember exactly what I did beyond sleeping and rinsing with saltwater. Get well soon, bashi of bashis.
• As far as pain relief, humor, sleep, doing things to keep your mind off the trauma you've suffered. Hopefully the story above gave you cause to smile, and rent a few movies to sit back and watch and sleep, sleep, sleep. You'll be right as rain in no time.
• You will still taste blood even if you aren't really bleeding, it's the clots. That's a good thing, you want the clots there. Rest well, sweet Bashi.
• Yes, you are supposed to rinse with saltwater, 'tis true. It always was very uncomfortable for me, however, hence my warning about no salty stuff. But if your doctor told you to do it, then do it!
• Grits
• I had all four of my wisdom teeth out at the same time, local anesthetic only. Worked out ok, but I learned that if you laugh (don't ask) during oral surgery? A small pinkish cloud of blood-mist will form over your mouth! Anyway, I had some sort of allergic reaction to the codeine the prescribed, me, they didn't want to give me anything too opiatic (because that wouldn't build any character, now would it?), but I was able to moderate the pain pretty handily with double doses of standard otc ibuprofen.
• Are you allowed to rinse out with something like Listerine? I swear by the stuff for preventing or ending infections, but I've not had dental surgery, so ask your doctor. As for room temperature foods, I second scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes. Spaghettios rock, and chicken noodle soup is surprisingly good lukewarm. Here's a good smoothy recipe that works at room temp and will give you good protein: 1/2 cu silken tofu (or plain yogurt) 1/2 cu soy milk (or skim milk) half banana 1/2 cu fruit (I prefer strawberries, though peaches work well too. When you serve this cold, use frozen fruit. For room temperature, use fresh fruit) Sweeten with honey to taste (regular sugar won't dissolve and will stay grainy. I'm reasonably certain you can eat honey while breastfeeding.) Blend everything up in a blender and enjoy!
• Ice cream is easy to eat and reduces the pain. I had a couple of Wisdom teeth taken out a couple of months ago. After the anaesthetic wore off I ate some ice cream and the next day I was fine. Didn't need to take any painkillers whatsoever. The blood taste will clear up by the following day too.
• Second the clove oil recommendation. It really does work amazingly well. When it wears off though, it fades quickly, so don't go out and forget the little bottle. Depending on where the oral surgery was located, you can also sometimes soak a tiny bit of gauze with the oil and tuck it in there. Now, for worst wisdom tooth story... Good friend of mine had four impacted teeth. Takes the dentist hours to get them out. Absolute torture for patient despite painkillers. She spends a week lying around drugged out of her skull and still writhing in pain. Then the dentist calls and says she needs to come back. He only got two of the teeth. In the extended ordeal he lost track of how many he actually worked on. And the dentist was a good friend of the patient.
• I like the use of the word "was". Heh. Feeling better with Panadeine, one side feels fine and the other is tolerable. Dentist said no salt rinses until tomorrow. Had a nice snack of yoghurt earlier, and some mushy pasta just now. And I know there's a tub of ice cream in the freezer, woo! Wisdom teeth are the dumbest evolutionary remnant I know. In two weeks I have a consult with an oral surgeon to discuss the two implants I'm getting, which will probably make today's surgery look like a beesting. I've stopped a brick wall with my face, had braces and root canals and this was certainly the worst thing yet. :) Useful advice and scary stories are indeed cheering, thank you!
• All of this makes me realize I must have been very lucky. I had six teeth removed last year, three wisdom teeth (not impacted) and three broken molars. My dentist worked on them two different days, removing all the bad teeth on one side, and five days later removing all the teeth that needed to come out on the other side. It was all done just with local anaesthetic. The bleeding was done within an hour of the local wearing off, and the pain was gone by the following day. I have a metric buttload of Tylenol with codiene remaining from the prescription I was given, since the dentist expected me to need them several days after each removal, and I only needed one the day of the removals, shortly after the local wore off. I did have some pain from one of the broken teeth before the great de-toothing, and found that a combination of two things helped immensely. I would start with a lukewarm saltwater rinse, which went some way toward deadening the pain as well as helping to fight off some of the infection, and then followed up with an application of clove oil on a cotton swab. The combination worked better for me than any of the otc pain meds or topical anaesthetics I'd tried. As for food, I drank broth (after it'd cooled to room temperature), ate yoghurt, and had some ice cream after the removals. I just made sure that anything that might affect me with the temperature never wound up on the side that had newly missing teeth. And with the pain gone by the following morning, I ate normally thereafter.
• Something I forgot: I ate some peanuts a few days after I thought I was completely recovered from my extractions. One slipped into the empty socket right before I bit down so the full force of my bite pushed it way down into the hole and against whatever nerve remnants lurked there. Ow. That may have been the most acutely painful moment of my life. I actually saw stars from the pain. So careful with the peanuts. As for dumb evolutionary remnants, it isn't unusual for people to be born without wisdom teeth. My father and two sisters were so blessed. Unfortunately I inherited my mother's under-the-gum-sideways-growing-hook-rooted-peanut-trapping wisdom teeth genes instead.
• The salt water thing. Don't drink through a straw for a couple of days. For the rest, stay online, talk to monkeys. 1.Compare notes with squid. 2.Read his profile, then send email to Chy. 3.Send bees a poem. 4.Post pr0n to the front page. 5.Double post it. 6.Make trolling remarlks on every thread on the front page. 7.Answer fan mail.
• I`m totally freakin now. Tomorrow I go for an extraction. Hopefully it will be standard and not surgical.($100 difference) The tooth is cracked or split from wearing a partial for thirty years with no adjustments ever made. It was an anchor tooth. I had one pulled Nov 1st and it went smooth, it was pretty shattered from years ago. Before Nov, I` had`nt been to a dentist for thirty years, and have had very few problems with my teeth. But just listening(reading) dental horror stories reminds me why I never went back to a dentist for thirty years.(edited)
• Saline, time - that's all that worked for me. Panadeine didn't do shit. I was ok in a week, even though they took all four out at once. They broke them up too, the bastards, ruining my cufflink plans.
• I`m just grateful we have brave people who willing to stop those pesky brick walls,, with their face?? he he, good luck tracicle
• Yeah, no problem retank. Last time I rode a motorbike for quite some time. :) bees, I'll start working on that list tomorrow. You should be aware in advance that my poetry skills rival the Vogons.
• Get well soon, sounds very painful.
• Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts And living glupules frart and slipulate Like jowling meated liverslime
• About half a bottle of whisky did it for me, but then I didn't have to remain coherent and responsible.
• i had one wisdom tooth removed a couple of years ago. went to work after the surgery, and later it was happy night - ended up drinking a bunch of alchohol. i think i even had some oysters at some point! being drunk, i even brought myself to have a couple of smokes. don't try this at home, but it didn't seem like a big deal. i cursed myself the next day for being stupid, but nothing really bad happened later - i gargled salty water from time to time, maybe that helped. everything closed up nicely and all. the weirdest thing was just balancing of the mouth when you have one tooth missing at the back, but i don't even notice it now. hopefully your pain will end soon.
• a friend's horror story: so my friend goes under general anasthetic as an inpatient to get four wisdom teeth removed (i guess they were very severely impacted). i go out to the hospital to collect her the day after the surgery. she's still dopey and all drugged up. we get in a cab and go back to her place and she goes to sleep. i go home. next morning, she calls me to say she has several large bruises on her chest. i phone the hospital where she had the surgery and i'm told that the dental surgeon had to position his knee against her chest to hold her in place while extracting one of the teeth. fortunately, the bruising disappeared quickly. her remedies while recuperating: clove oil, salt water washes, ice cream (all mentioned), and hashish (i guess not good while breast feeding).
• My story: All 4 wisdom teeth were impacted, one growing sideways. The oral surgeon decided to do it in two different procedures, which I think was ideal. One side each time, which left me with a perfectly good side for chewing. So - the first time I go and they give me the happy gas, and I'm feeling just fine. All of the sudden I see blood shoot out of my mouth and hit the guy right on his pristine white shirt. He then somewhat frantically calls for "more suction". I remember thinking that I should probably be concerned, but that all I really thought was "heh, got 'em." He left the room for a few minutes and came back with a brand new shirt on. I was given Percocet for the pain, but I ended up almost fainting after taking one, so I think I ended up just using Tylenol or Advil. The worst part of recovery was the nasty taste that was constantly in my mouth from the dissolvable stitches. No matter what I did, I couldn't get rid of that awful taste. Oh yeah, and don't use a straw or do much sucking. You don't want to end up with a dry socket.
• Rice pudding! Hope you're feeling better soon.
• I had mine out (all four) in the morning and had to keep the gauze in til the next day, because it was still bleedy. I ate several boxes of mashed potato product (garlic) and developed insane cravings for tomato juice, which I normally dislike. And yogurt. I was craving rice but my boyfriend wouldn't let me have any, afraid it would get stuck under the stitches. I'm not sure if this is actually an issue, though when I went for a checkup the next week, they gave me a neat syringe thingy to clean them out. The tylenol-with-codeine did nothing for me the first few days. I had to get into my boyfriend's hydrocodone until my mom came up to take care of me and, well, it was easier to switch to codeine than to argue with her, cause it still hurt to talk. I would assume hydrocodone + breastfeeding = not good. Other than that, sleep, and DVDs for when you can't sleep. If your stitches start tickling the back of your throat, like mine did, you can either go in and have them trimmed or give them a few days and they'll sort of settle into a knot before they dissolve. I went in on a Wednesday and was feeling 80% by Sunday, and I'm a slow healer and giant wimp. Apparently the dentist woke me up during the procedure to say "You're snoring, so I have to keep you really lightly anesthetized so you don't die, is that okay?" and I replied "Yeah, that's fine." I have no memory of this but I did wake up with a giant snore.
• Oh, yes, COLD PACK. Helps with the pain and cuts down on the chipmunk effect. You can probably rig up something to hold it to your face if you need to run after a kid or two. Hope you feel better soon!!
• I second no straws. I thought that milkshakes would be a good deal, but sucking a thick one popped the clot out. Drink your milkshake from a spoon. How do we prevent our children needing this in the future? My own theory is that the jaw grows based on the pressure and stress of chewing, but the teeth are of a predetermined size. Modern processed food does not need the chewing that we evolved to be able to cope with. So, feed those children raw meat and whole grains with the husks on.
• Trace, try fetal tissue no wait owl semen hope you're feeling better soon.
• I think all of the best advice has been given, so I'll impart with my wisdom tooth experience: All four at once. No gas, nothing to sedate me, the dentist wanted me "alert," as he put it. I was also the "guinea pig" for a new "numbing" agent that the dentist wanted to try out. After 13 shots and 20 minutes, my mouth still was not numb! They loaded me up with an extra four shots to "do the trick." Standard wrenching-out ensued... Although the dentist was literally yelling at me, "Open wider!! Come on! You have to work with me!!" As he yanked and pried my mouth to no avail. Once finished, the new "numbing" agent apparently kicked in on delay. My entire face went stone-numb. No one told me that there was a back exit to avoid scaring the hell out of the patients waiting in the lobby - I walked out and had no idea that blood was gushing forth from my mouth and running down my throat! A few kids screamed, and the receptionist yelled at me. Great! Two days on Demerol, and I was flying high. It eventually made me sick to my stomach (OK, imagine that your brain is mashed, mouth bloody, and you are tossing your stomach into the toilet - - - NOT NICE!). One week later I had to go back to get the stitches out [Goodness, I hope they have the type that dissolve now!] The dentist was not in the office, and a different assistant was on duty. The first thing she asked me, "Do you know if you have single or double knots?" WTF!? How the hell was I suppose to know!? She went slowly with the first one: snip... pull ever-so-gently... and out came the miniscule thread. "Ok, you have single knots!" And with that she went in with gusto! The problem - that was the only single knotted stitch! The next one was double - so after she snipped and pulled, the remaining double knot grabbed hold of my tender pulpy flesh and RIPPED it all open!!!!! GAAAAAAAHHHH!!! Talk about bleed! Had to get new stitches, and was in further agony for an additional week. Oh yeah, I liked going to the dentist prior to that.
• I second no straws. I thought that milkshakes would be a good deal, but sucking a thick one popped the clot out. I was going to ask earlier why no straws.... *shudder* My dentist has recommended I get an extraction as well, as two of my wisdom teeth are impacted. But I'm a huge wimp, and I'm scared.
• I second no straws. I thought that milkshakes would be a good deal, but sucking a thick one popped the clot out. I was going to ask earlier why no straws.... *shudder* My dentist has recommended I get an extraction as well, as two of my wisdom teeth are impacted. But I'm a huge wimp, and I'm scared.
• A second vote on cold packs!! Get a couple, and rotate them for 20 minutes every 2 hours (or as best you can manage). This reduces the swelling and helps your healing process, making life a little easier. Do be sure that you painkiller is also an anti-inflammatory. Hugs and the sympathy of monkeys may also be good!
• eek! sorry about that.
• I had three teeth removed last June, and felt out-of-sorts for almost a week. So be prepared to not be 100% right away. I second the suggestion of (gently!) swishing salt water around in your mouth, several times a day (definitely after meals). As far as food goes, I developed a serious love for instant mashed potatoes, and would drink at least one smoothie a day.
• I had all 4 of mine removed about 10 years ago. Much of the monkey wisdom can be followed here to ease your pain. But here's the oddest thing that no one told me to expect: In about a week or two, you may notice a very tiny hard lump near where your wisdom teeth used to be. It may be painful when you poke at it with your tongue. This is not something to go back to the dentist to have checked out. During extraction, the tooth can break up into small pieces and while he may try, the dentist can't get it all out. These very small pieces eventually work their way out via your gums. I had a few of them but it was all done after a month or so.
• You've surely had enough advice by now, but since I had a similar extraction a week ago I thought I'd chime in too. After the first day or two the pain at the extraction site was basically gone. However, my jaw joint (TMJ) was sore on both sides for a full week. It hurt to touch, right behind the ears. Ice definitely helped. I was paranoid about the dreaded "dry socket", but it seems that if you aren't screaming in pain by about day 4, then you're fine.
• Oh, boy! Can I join in? I had four perfectly good and useful wisedom teeth removed on the advice of a dentist when I really didn't need to have it done. As surgery goes, it went fine, not entirely painless, but it didn't hurt that much and healed fast. BUT! The really fun stuff comes at the end of this month. I'm having "Osseous surgery" including a bone replacement graft with a "guided tissue regen-resorb" (whatever that is.) Apparently this consists of incising a flap into the gum, scraping out the infection in the bone to try to save the tooth and keep the jawbone from cratering further, and then packing cadaver-harvested bone cells into the crater to form a matrix to get it to heal and hold the tooth from wobbling. How's THAT for gross? The really painful part is going to be the $1200 and no dental insurance. If he winds up in there and there's too much infection, it will only cost me the molar and $650, plus a larger bone replacement graft. And I need new glasses. There goes the "discretionary income." Ah, who needs a life anyway?
• MoFi is free GramMa. *does a little dance, whistles a happy tune, points to Pandacam*
• I think I told my horror story on the old thread, but as for recovery, just keep up with the salt washes. Replaces gauze often. Have a drool cup handy, and watch plenty of dumb, marathon tv. Use this opportunity to be exceptionally cranky and cruel to your loved ones. Claim it was all the drugs' doing. Give the little salt spray syringe to your eldest as a water gun in compensation.
• Oh, and plenty of room temperature tea. Forgot that bit.
• Owie. Hope you feel better soon. Applesauce -- it comes in a ridiculous number of flavors, these days.
• Cold packs, seconded: I put one on either side and wrapped a cloth bandage around my head several times, from chin to crown, to hold them on. Looked stupid, but worked. Leek-and-potato soup totally works, foodwise.
• Actually, I think some fetal tissue will help you heal more quickly. I hear it's also quite tasty.
• Fly to LA and hangout with squidranch. You can heap pity upon each other.
• I was thinking of that, mct. Squid's in a truckload more pain than I am. I definitely have the chipmunk effect on one side today (the side that the poor dentist spent 20 minutes yanking and levering and crunching) while the other side (10 seconds with a pair of pliers) looks and feels almost completely normal. Drinking lots of room-temperature stuff today, but I'm about to take the kids to a 4th birthday party where cake may be consumed in teeny-tiny doses.
• My update:wisdom tooth pulled at 2:00. bleeding finally slowing down 21:30. Eating bananas and yogurt. No pain.No vicodin taken yet. watching tooth extraction thread. kept tooth as memento, possible jewelry setting. That is all.
• And mine: spent afternoon supervising kids aged 1-4, need alcohol and/or more painkillers. Friday night is our traditional fish-and-chip night, but I guess I'll be having yoghurt again. Cake was tasty. Bob the Builder. Wish I'd gotten to see the teeth. Well, maybe the one that wasn't crushed in order to remove it. BlueHorse, your upcoming surgery would be enough to make me ask for dentures. I've considered asking in the past in any case, but that would clinch it.
• poor Monkeybashi... My wisdom tooth extraction (all four at once) was a true delight. The periodontist put me under, took'em out, woke me up, and then handed me (after the bill) enough percocet to keep me glued to the couch playing video games for the next three days -- and what a three days it was! Have you considered selling your childern to the knackers? Of course, on a more relevant tangent, the soreness you're feeling could be particles of food that have slipped into the empty sockets where your teeth used to be. I had a real problem with that, you'd be suprised (or maybe you wouldn't) at how much pain a tiny speck of pasta can cause when its sitting in your brand new mouth wound. If the pain feels like pressure similar to a nasty headache on one, or both, sides of your head then you may want to go back to your periodontist and get some sort of utensil (mine was a groovy looking plastic syringe) to flush out your wisom pits.
• Left tooth under pillow for tooth fairy. He was`nt was I was expecting.
• Heheh, "wisdom pits".
• Hope the discomfort subsides rapidement. My girlfriend's having her second bout of oral surgery next week, and is overjoyed that though she'll have stitches in her mouth again, at least they won't be in the roof of her mouth this time. :)
• That would drive me nuts.
• I still have one of my wisdom teeth, in a decorative wooden box on my windowsill. Two of them I mailed to some college friends who had a keg party to help raise money so I could afford the surgery.
• i ♥ koko's college friends. still have three wisdom teeth i couldn't afford to get removed in my 20s. dentist doesn't see the point now.
• Someone asked for an update, so: I was still in pain off and on until a couple of days ago. This is scary: the dentist had said the main reason for removing the wisdom teeth was that there were cavities in the next molars along, that was caused by and blocked in by the wisdom teeth. I poked a finger in there to feel for whatever was causing the pain, and turns out the cavity is not so much a cavity as a freaking great hole in the side of the molar. I have to go back and get that filled in, but it won't be until mid-October unless I get to a point where the pain's too strong. It's been almost non-existent since I discovered the hole because I've been much more careful. But wow, I'm talking big holes. I'm going to visit an oral surgeon on Tuesday for a consult to prepare for the two implanted incisors that are next on the list. It's making me a little nervous.
• Ai yi yi, Tracicle! I don't know anything about implanted tooth procedures. I am so sorry. Good luck and here's hoping you are pain-free until that time.