--
all four of my wisdom teeth are growing. it's a bit squeezed in my mouth, but they're all growing straight, no pain, except for the right bottom one. what an asshole. it's at almost 45 degrees. one day it starts hurting, i knew what was coming, called the dentist, and dealt with the pain for 3 whole days (i had an exam the day before the appointment and i supposed the pain would only be worse after the extraction).
anyway, i go into the dentist's, get a ton of injections. local anaesthesia only. i sit for 20 minutes as i go numb all the way down my throat. well, half my throat. very weird.
the dentist starts on my bottom tooth. the procedure itself is a lot of drilling sounds. i don't know anything else because i have no idea what's even in my mouth. they could've be punching holes into my tongue and i wouldn't have felt a thing. a lot of wrenching my head around too.
then suddenly the dentist says, "okay, we're done". i look at the clock, it's been 20 minutes max. i used to work at this clinic, and my experiences have led me to believe that he'd be fiddling around in my mouth for half an hour at least. i didn't even know he'd put the stitches in. i look around, there's like next to no blood anywhere. i'm confused. my mouth is numb.
my tooth was so huge and curved on the x-ray, it should've been a problematic extraction. and there was so much drilling. so. much. drilling. i thought he'd be segmenting my tooth into bits with all that drilling. i'm really confused. i lie back down and he starts on the top tooth.
and that one takes all of 5 minutes. i'm completely serious. i sit up and look around. there's still no blood... even the instruments look pretty clean. i've seen teeth cleanings that are bloodier than this.
on the tray beside me are 2 complete, whole, undamaged wisdom teeth. i swear i've spent more time waiting for the anaesthesia to set in than actually having my teeth extracted.
after that i get started on the healing. it's gross and uncomfortable for the most part. i took out the gauze after about 2-3 hours, even though i think i was still bleeding a bit. but i couldn't stand having the gauze stick halfway down my throat any more. then i rinsed my mouth, by which i mean i poured some water in, tilted my head, then let the water dribble down my chin slowly. you should not be rinsing your mouth for 24 hours, by the way.
then i drank some water slowly using a straw. which you should also not do. what i did was seal the straw against the roof of my mouth and suck really gently, while my mouth was open. i imagine the physics is something like, the area of pressure change didn't include any of the 2 extraction sites, so i was safe.
bread is good food for post-extraction, because you can rip off pieces, stuff it in the other side to soak, then just swallow it. so i've been just eating bread for 4 days (i'm a little over-cautious, there's no need to do this really). some reasons for me being so cautious:
- didn't want to chew too much and dislodge my blood clot and suffer dry socket
- didn't want to brush the area and risk dry socket, which means
- i can only use the mouthwash, which doesn't dislodge food bits because i can't rinse vigorously
- so i can only eat soft things
what it really means is that i can take up to 20 minutes to eat a slice of bread. 30 minutes for a banana.
as for the healing process, visually the gum at the extraction site was the same the whole 5 days. it looks abnormally healthy. no discolouration. no swelling. granted, i can't see much because my other molars are blocking, but what i can see looks really oddly healthy.
the pain at day 5 is that kind of niggling pain that's just annoying. like an ache that's minor enough that you can press away. i was on ibuprofen the few days before this (12 hour intervals), and it was just completely painless.
my cheek is still a little swollen and painful, just that little bit on my jaw. the swelling isn't obvious at all, visually, but you can feel it. it's essentially remained the same since the day of the extraction.
overall, i'm not sure if i'm a fast healer, but i'm a very thorough healer. basically every scar on my body has faded over the years until they're barely identifiable, and i had a lot of scars. so... i hope this extraction heals pretty completely too.
in the meantime it's just a lot of being uncomfortable and waiting
update: day 6 is completely painless. jaw only hurts when i try to open my mouth to the maximum. my cheek still feels a bit weird, so that bit of gum might still be a little swollen. i've started brushing near the area while shining a torchlight into my mouth, so i don't actually touch the extraction site.
No comments:
Post a Comment