Wisdom Teeth

[Komm Suesser Tod]

I didn't have to get my wisdom teeth out, but I did have to get pieces of my gums that were growing over my back teeth cut off. Holy god damn that hurt, and the worst part is that I may have to go back every few years and do it again.

[Tythera]

A good option for cleaning out the sockets is some sort of syringe. The oral surgeon I went to last December gave me one of those, it works wonders for cleaning them out.

I don't remember the first two hours I was "awake" after the surgeon finished though. Apparently my mom took me to a grocery store then brought me to my place, and I don't remember a bit of it.

[ferigor]

I either didn't get my wisdom teeth, or they came in and I never noticed. how many teeth should I have with or without them?

I never got wisdom teeth, and neither did either of my brothers. Some people are just born without some teeth. I actually still have 2 capped baby teeth because I didn't have any adult teeth underneath them. One of them just developed a hole/cavity so I went to the dentist. He pretty much explained that I was supposed to lose that tooth when I was around 12, so I've more than doubled the life of it, but it doesn't have a root and its pretty much just a rotten tooth encased in metal now, so I need to get it taken out.

[Maaglin]

Yeah, my bottom ones were horrific. I believe "impacted" was the term they used. one of them was angled downward and growing tword the root of the one next to it. Not to mention the other was right on top of a nerve and it constantly gave me headaches. When I called and asked the chick at the office about the warm salt water thing she was like "uh...why would you do that? salt water tastes icky." ...yeah. I just want to do all I can to heal asap cause i fucking want some pizza and i want to play beer pong. Btw, how long before I can drink again?

Yeah, impacted is the correct term. One of mine ran close to a nerve as well, but it didn't bother me prior to having the tooth removed. My dentist only warned that it was possible that when the tooth was removed that it may affect the nerve and I'd lose some feeling in my face, but that didn't happen.

First thing I did when I got home was pop a pill and have a couple beers. So depending on what you're up for, you can drink right away. May or may not be a good idea for you personally to drink with the meds; up to you, I'm sure your doctor would advise against it.

It's important to keep your mouth clean, so I would definately reccomend some sort of mouth wash or salt water, etc, since it's impossible to brush back there with any effect for a little while. I'm surprised your dentist didn't give you some mouth wash really. Just make sure when you do it you don't close your mouth and swish it around too vigoursly since that can lead to dislodgeing the blood clot = dry socket. I just left my mouth open, tilted my head back and let the wash sit on my sockets and then would move my head around a little bit to simulate the swishing thing.

I had all 4 removed at once. All of them were impacted so I got put under.

After the surgery, there was so much blood in my mouth it was unreal and I was sort of queesy. I remember spitting an entire mouthful of blood into a parking lot on the way home.

Maybe that was all it took, I don't know, but I ended up with dry socket. The pain was unbearable, probably the worst I've been through and I've gone through a kidney stone which took a week to pass that was pretty bad.

Pills didn't do much of anything for my pain and I pretty much couldn't eat or sleep more than a few hours at a time for a straight week. Seriously... worst week of my life. At least they're gone.

I feel ya man. I sat in that chair for damn near 4 hours while they cut, drilled, and pulled. My dentist didn't put me under either, just kept shooting up the inside of my mouth with some numbing agent that stopped working for the last 30 mins of it.

I still have small pieces of my bottom wisdom teeth in that he wanted to go back and drill out later, but fuck that. I'll never be making that appointment.

Sucks the pills didn't help you. As long as I took one every 2-3 hours or was sleeping, I was just fine.

Blood thing sucked too. My wife had to drive me about an hour from the dentist back to our house while I was spitting out blood the whole time and felt like shit. Worst ride ever!

[Diabolic Peach]

Had all mine removed at once, took about 20 minutes. Removed gauge about 8 hours later. Never had pain, went on with my life the next day. Just make sure you rinse your mouth out well after everytime you eat. Brush your teeth lightly, but make sure you brush them everyday to keep the area clean. Don't use straws. No sure about dry socket, didnt have to go through that.

You should be able to eat normal food the next day, just as long as you can open your mouth to eat it.

[Yuri-G]

I fucking went into the dentist office, got knocked out, woke up, then walked out. 3 hours later I was playing DDR.....I don't know what people are crying about really.

It's different for everyone. Some people are in pain for weeks (like me), some are fine in hours. Depends a lot on what type of surgery they have to do, probably how well your body handles injury too.

[Dimmauk]

Oh what a joy this is. I had all 4 removed wednesday and i would say i'm sore as a mother fucker, but the pain meds they gave me keep me relativly chipper, lol. It's been over 24 hours so i took my gauze out, but i'm curious what foods i can have to eat and extra precautions i need to take still and for how long. Also, what are dry sockets? The surgeon explained it to me but i was still fucked up from the IV sedation that i dont remember. So far all i've had to eat was jello, chicken noodle soup, and mashed potatoes. I'm freaking starving. Share your experiances with this wonderful procedure! and recovery stories!

I sucked on Tea packs to help with holes in my gums when I had all 4 removed at the same time. Also, using that squirter syringe to get food out of the holes is fun.

[Heavencloud]

Vikoden was awesome. Completely healed up in a matter of days for me.

[Cesaria]

I shouldn't have opened this thread - have to have a tooth out on Wednesday and I reckon it's going to be a gum-cutting spectacular.

Had my wisdom teeth out though - was expecting all these horror stories, screamed the place down in terror when they were sedating me (I'm phobic beyond belief over dentists) - and then had no problems at all.

[Emmaline]

How do I clean them out well? I was told to brush lightly but that's about it. The guy really didnt tell me much of anything and I dont want to risk ripping out my stitches or something.

Don't brush back there! Not even lightly. Brush your teeth, just not the surgery area. Get a curved syringe and squirt salt water back into the holes, I did this for weeks after the surgery!

Food wise, I ate a lot of ice cream...it was the best...avoid refried beans, got one stuck in the hole for about a full day -.-;

[sephir]

I had mine removed about 4 years ago it was one of the worst experiences I've had. The dental surgeon explained that it was so bad because my teeth broke apart when he was pulling them out and he actually had to dig to pull the bits out. I was given about a month and a half worth of demerol so I was pretty happy.

I bought a cooking syringe and every now and then would fill it with listerine and blast the holes with it to try to flush out whatever gunk accumulated in there. the bad breath took a while to go away, but the holes took much longer. You will completely normal in 3-8 weeks depending on how bad it is.

[Jaraude]

Reading this makes me realize how lucky I was. I only had wisdom teeth in my upper set, guess they never developed in my lower set. The ones I did have were partially erupted but got stuck on my back molars so were not able to come all the way in. I expected to have a horrible experience like most of what others have already shared. The dental surgeon that I saw did not put me out and instead just used local anesthesia. Once I was numbed up I was leaned back in the chair and he used a bore/wedge like tool to break my wisdom teeth. I remember that I couldn't feel any pain but the amount of pressure he used to split the teeth was noticeable. The fragements were extracted, mouth rinsed and gauzed up and I was out the door. The actual removal didn't take more than 10 minutes. Longest part for me was waiting for the anesthesia to kick in.

I didn't take any pain meds at all since my operation went so good, but I still had to be careful of dry sockets, infections, like everyone else. My advice to the OP is to listen to the people that suggested using a saline (salt water) rinse. Obviously you want to still want to keep up on your normal hygiene (brushing, etc.) but rinsing in addition should help you to avoid any complications.

[SubzeroDiabolos]

I love my teeth where they are after reading this thread.

[Mortama]

Is this some sort of american thing because. atleast in my area in the UK dentists don't like removing the wisdom teeth.

Everyone I know back from school including my brothers and sisters have neva had them removed either.


I must admit ever so often my wisdom teeth give me jip but i just suck on some ice cubes lol.

[Mayareira]

Mine was nasty, it got swollen and I wasn't able to eat anything(soup for a week, go). In the end I got it removed and never looked back.

Night of surgery was painful(meds helped a lot, nothing unbearable) and that's it.

[Taera]

Is this some sort of american thing because. atleast in my area in the UK dentists don't like removing the wisdom teeth.

Everyone I know back from school including my brothers and sisters have neva had them removed either.


I must admit ever so often my wisdom teeth give me jip but i just suck on some ice cubes lol.

I didnt know the UK had dentists.

[Mortama]

lol you do have a point i live in the country so i see allot of terrible teeth.

mine has always been really good though haven't seen a dentist in over 10years.

[Aleth]

Seems like alot of Americans have them removed. Apart from dealing with real wisdom teeth problems it potentially prevents frontal crowding of your adult teeth, so less likely to get snaggly teeth! However tearing out perfectly functional body parts is usually frowned upon in a non-profit driven healthcare system... My wisdom teeth ached a bit when coming in... using the traditional method of rubbing whiskey on them made it more than bearable... but that was more for fun. So mostly a cosmetic thing or saving people who would be Darwin'd without modern healthcare...

[Maaglin]

Is this some sort of american thing because. atleast in my area in the UK dentists don't like removing the wisdom teeth.

Everyone I know back from school including my brothers and sisters have neva had them removed either.


I must admit ever so often my wisdom teeth give me jip but i just suck on some ice cubes lol.

It's mostly a cleanliness issue. It is very difficult to adequately keep the back area of your mouth clean, no matter how good of a job you think you are doing. I have never had any cavities or dental problems in the past. However, my 4 wisdom teeth all had severe cavities and were becoming infected due to the fact that it's so hard to keep the area clean.

It can be made worse if your teeth only partially break through because it can create a gum flap area where bits of food and germs get stuck and it can cause infections. For example, if you accidently bite the side of your mouth, it becomes infected and painful.

They also develop cavities as a result of the difficulties in keeping the area clean and gum diease.

In more serious cases, this can lead to damage to other teeth and your jaw bone (i.e. slowly eating away at your bone).

It is not merely a cosmetic issue as alluded to by the poster above.

The real moral here is that you should have your wisdom teeth pulled as soon as possible (aka in your teens or very early 20's at the latest). The longer you wait, the more time they have to develop and get rooted in. Most of the issues I had to deal with were because I didn't have mine pulled until I was 29, which was way past time. So my teeth were well established and had too much time to develop those gnarly roots that made it so difficult. Due to my bottom 2 teeth being impacted coupled with waiting so long to get the out, they were actually partially fused to my lower jaw, hence why they had to cut through my gums and partially into my jaw to remove them.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Do you absolutely have to get your wisdom teeth removed? Mine grew in and haven't really bothered me outside of having to spend more time brushing out any hidden food. I think the last time I saw a dentist, they said they grew inmpacted or something.