Widsom Teeth

[silvan]

I had all four of mine out when I was like 34 or something. The dentist was mad at me for waiting so late, but the last thing he'd told me was "you'll know when it's time to take them out." They were impacted for years, but never emerged from the gumline, and never caused me any overt problems, until one day when one of them finally did break through a little, and caused an infection. Oh. I guess it's time.

So I go to the oral surgeon, he does his thing. I wake up with the corners of my mouth ripped and bleeding so that I look and feel like the Joker, and my jaw feels like they must have used a damn hydraulic bottle jack to open my mouth.

Doesn't give me the little pamphlet he's supposed to with the correct post-operative instructions. He tells me "When you get home, I don't want you to baby these things. Just go get a piece of chicken or something, and eat whatever you want as soon as you can manage it."

So I did. I had a bunch of fruit smoothies initially, and then I had a big pile of potato wedges, fried chicken, strawberry pie, poppyseed rolls, and all kinds of other stuff at a potluck that night, while I was still mostly numb. (It was a banquet for my son's Cub Scout group.)

I was fine at first, but I started to have some problems after a few days, and when I went in for my followup visit a week later, the nurse/whatever took out a bottle of room temperature saline and shot it into the wound areas. I had no idea I had open wounds. They never told me that. I figured that's what the stitches were for. Apparently the stitches weren't for much of anything at all, except just to have something painful for them to take out later.

So the cool saline goes in there, and I couldn't not cry. Oh, the visceral, excruciating agony! I had raspberry seeds, strawberry seeds, meat chunks, and who knows what all other kinds of junk jammed in there, and it had rotted, so that saline was like flushing a dead and bloated chicken corpse out of my mouth. It oozed putrid pus for days, and my breath smelled like the back of a roadkill collection truck on a hot summer day. I remember one night at Cubs I was playing the victim in need of rescue, and one of the Cubs said to me "Mr. McIntyre, it smells like a groundhog died in your mouth."

I had to carry two thermos bottles full of hot salt water with me to flush the holes out with on the road, with this little syringe thing. Had to be at least lukewarm, or I would about crap my pants when it went shooting in there, but it could never be too hot, so I left out with it near boiling, and had to stop every so often to flush.

That was terrible. I had to endure that for like a month or something before it finally started to heal over. I'm still hypersensitive to cold on the left side of my face, and my mouth has just never been the same since. They warned me that because I was so old there was a serious danger that I would suffer permanent nerve damage, and I think I must have.

So six months later, I go back to my regular dentist for a checkup, and he notices that weird little piece of chicken bone or whatever I haven't been able to get out from between my teeth is actually a piece of my own jawbone that splintered off. Ouch, and yuck. Then he asks me how many teeth I had extracted.

Four. I wanted to get it all done at once. They charged me for two "difficult" extractions and two "extremely difficult" extractions, and I was billed $800 a pop for the "extremely difficult" teeth and $600 a pop for the "difficult" ones, or something in that ridiculous ballpark, and the insurance has done its thing, and I've paid the $1500 I owed, and all is happy ever after, right?

Let's get you an X-ray. There's a bony growth on number 973B here that looks like it could be a tooth.

Hoooookay.

So I get the X-ray, and that son of a bitch cut me, stitched me back up, and invited me to pack all kinds of crap in the hole and cause myself no end of excruciation, and the donkey raping rooster sucker DIDN'T CUT OUT THE EFFING TOOTH HE BILLED ME $800 FOR!!!!

I guess the phone rang, or his secretary started going down on him in the middle of the operation or something, and he forgot to take the tooth out while he had the hole open.

Son of a bitch!

So I had to go back through all of that crap with the saline and everything a second time, after the second time I went under. This time a different surgeon working at the same place did the procedure, and he gave me the correct instructions and everything, and the whole ordeal was still a pain in the ass, but it was so much better when I didn't have some smartass joking ******* who wouldn't realize I didn't know he was joking.

I should have sued their asses off, but I didn't.

The worst part is when I woke up the second time, they handed me that tooth in a baggie to prove it was out, and said "If you grow any more teeth, let us know."

AS IF!

[Mackman]

I had all four of mine out when I was like 34 or something. The dentist was mad at me for waiting so late, but the last thing he'd told me was "you'll know when it's time to take them out." They were impacted for years, but never emerged from the gumline, and never caused me any overt problems, until one day when one of them finally did break through a little, and caused an infection. Oh. I guess it's time.

So I go to the oral surgeon, he does his thing. I wake up with the corners of my mouth ripped and bleeding so that I look and feel like the Joker, and my jaw feels like they must have used a damn hydraulic bottle jack to open my mouth.

Doesn't give me the little pamphlet he's supposed to with the correct post-operative instructions. He tells me "When you get home, I don't want you to baby these things. Just go get a piece of chicken or something, and eat whatever you want as soon as you can manage it."

So I did. I had a bunch of fruit smoothies initially, and then I had a big pile of potato wedges, fried chicken, strawberry pie, poppyseed rolls, and all kinds of other stuff at a potluck that night, while I was still mostly numb. (It was a banquet for my son's Cub Scout group.)

I was fine at first, but I started to have some problems after a few days, and when I went in for my followup visit a week later, the nurse/whatever took out a bottle of room temperature saline and shot it into the wound areas. I had no idea I had open wounds. They never told me that. I figured that's what the stitches were for. Apparently the stitches weren't for much of anything at all, except just to have something painful for them to take out later.

So the cool saline goes in there, and I couldn't not cry. Oh, the visceral, excruciating agony! I had raspberry seeds, strawberry seeds, meat chunks, and who knows what all other kinds of junk jammed in there, and it had rotted, so that saline was like flushing a dead and bloated chicken corpse out of my mouth. It oozed putrid pus for days, and my breath smelled like the back of a roadkill collection truck on a hot summer day. I remember one night at Cubs I was playing the victim in need of rescue, and one of the Cubs said to me "Mr. McIntyre, it smells like a groundhog died in your mouth."

I had to carry two thermos bottles full of hot salt water with me to flush the holes out with on the road, with this little syringe thing. Had to be at least lukewarm, or I would about crap my pants when it went shooting in there, but it could never be too hot, so I left out with it near boiling, and had to stop every so often to flush.

That was terrible. I had to endure that for like a month or something before it finally started to heal over. I'm still hypersensitive to cold on the left side of my face, and my mouth has just never been the same since. They warned me that because I was so old there was a serious danger that I would suffer permanent nerve damage, and I think I must have.

So six months later, I go back to my regular dentist for a checkup, and he notices that weird little piece of chicken bone or whatever I haven't been able to get out from between my teeth is actually a piece of my own jawbone that splintered off. Ouch, and yuck. Then he asks me how many teeth I had extracted.

Four. I wanted to get it all done at once. They charged me for two "difficult" extractions and two "extremely difficult" extractions, and I was billed $800 a pop for the "extremely difficult" teeth and $600 a pop for the "difficult" ones, or something in that ridiculous ballpark, and the insurance has done its thing, and I've paid the $1500 I owed, and all is happy ever after, right?

Let's get you an X-ray. There's a bony growth on number 973B here that looks like it could be a tooth.

Hoooookay.

So I get the X-ray, and that son of a bitch cut me, stitched me back up, and invited me to pack all kinds of crap in the hole and cause myself no end of excruciation, and the donkey raping rooster sucker DIDN'T CUT OUT THE EFFING TOOTH HE BILLED ME $800 FOR!!!!

I guess the phone rang, or his secretary started going down on him in the middle of the operation or something, and he forgot to take the tooth out while he had the hole open.

Son of a bitch!

So I had to go back through all of that crap with the saline and everything a second time, after the second time I went under. This time a different surgeon working at the same place did the procedure, and he gave me the correct instructions and everything, and the whole ordeal was still a pain in the ass, but it was so much better when I didn't have some smartass joking ******* who wouldn't realize I didn't know he was joking.

I should have sued their asses off, but I didn't.

The worst part is when I woke up the second time, they handed me that tooth in a baggie to prove it was out, and said "If you grow any more teeth, let us know."

AS IF!

I thought i had it bad. :shock:

[DaveFromColorado]

I had my Wisdom teeth yanked out just after my 28th B-day ... they were impacted and they'd crushed the roots of the four molars in front of them ... after about $2700, I had 8 teeth total pulled, 4 wisdom teeth, and 4 molars - it didn't really effect my eating ability. I know what you mean about wishing you had better insurance coverage.

I was smoking within 36 hours, I just made sure I had gauze over the sockets, and I didn't get any dry sockets.

The thing that I found the most gross was waking up the next morning, and coughing up all that disgusting stuff.

I wasn't put fully under for any of the teeth to be removed, they used Lidocaine (local anesthetic) and I got Nitrous Oxide, so I was quite happy with the removal of those teeth.

I'm truly glad I didn't have to go through what silvan went through.

--Dave.

[golfhobo]

I guess I'm lucky!!

I don't HAVE any!

Wisdom..... that is.....

or TEETH.... for that matter! :wink:

[Random_Facts]

Had all my 4 wisdom teeth pulled a little after my 18th birthday. Oh that was not fun.. I chose the "put me to sleep doc" when I woke up I was on the couch...and was in serve pain Lol. Chicken noodle soup/and anything soft was my best friend. Thank god you only have to do it once...Just pull all 4 get it over with!!

[Useless]

I had my Wisdom Teeth pulled out in August of 1986.

Apparently, when the oral surgeon extracted my teeth, he also pulled out whatever wisdom they contained, because just two weeks later, I got married!! :P

[BanditsCousin]

I got mine pulled a little of a year ago. I only had 3 of them. You wake up and feel as confused as a hungry baby in a strip club. I did get a voucher for a free milkshake at the local BK though I think i paid about 15-1800 as well.

Its not as bad as some people say. of course, I may have been fortunate. You even get the luxury or stuffing gauze in your gumz and changing it a lot. Don't look at it, and definitely don't smell it!

[silvan]

Never had a dry socket, but a friend endured it. He was a smoker, and he 'snuck" one. Got dry sockets in two teeth.

They can't do anything for it, you have to endure it. He described it as being worse than pushing out a pea sized kidney stone - which he did.

10-4 on that. I was smoking the same day, because I'm stubborn that way, and boy did I pay for it. Dry sockets in all four sockets, and holy ****, that's painful enough to make a fat bastard freightwrangler piss his pants and cry like a baby.

[belpre122]

Dry socket is easy to cure..take half an asprin and set it right inside the socket..cover the asprin with a cottonball that is wet....burbon worked for me. Next day..socket is in good shape.

It must be time for bed. On my first read through, I could have sworn that Orangetxguy said "Captain Morgan" instead of bourbon. :P