My Experience with Wisdom Tooth Removal

We've all heard them. The horror stories associated with wisdom tooth removal. It's almost as if losing your wisdom teeth is some incredible rite of passage that only the toughest of the tough can overcome.

An acquaintance of mine told me that his brother had a bad reaction to the anesthetics and was essentially awake but paralyzed for the entire procedure so he felt everything.

A friend of mine told me his mother wasn't given a large enough dose of general anesthesia and woke up partway through the procedure.

Another friend of mine told me that her wisdom teeth were impacted so her procedure was more complicated and painful than the average one. She mentioned how she couldn't drink out of a straw or eat normal food for a week, how she had to use a syringe to clean out the incision areas, how badly she drooled due to the numbness in her face and mouth.

When the oral surgeon asked me at my consultation if I wanted local or general anesthesia, my mother immediately jumped in and suggested general anesthesia for me. Naturally, these stories and her reaction all scared the bejeezus out of me.

I've never had any kind of operation or similar procedure before. I had no clue what to expect. I just knew I didn't want to become one of those embarrassing YouTube sensations, famous for my reaction to anesthesia. I was expecting to be miserable for days.

My appointment was scheduled for Friday the 13th at 8am. Now I'm not a superstitious person, in fact most Friday the 13ths have been generally really good for me, but that wasn't really the ideal date for a first time medical experience in my book.

I was asked to arrive at 7:30am and I was told to avoid drinking or eating anything for 8 hours prior to the procedure. My last drink was around midnight when I essentially chugged some fluids because I knew I'd be thirsty when I woke up. I slept like absolute garbage that night too; I went into the office on only about two and a half hours of sleep.

They had me sign some forms verifying that I was free of Covid-19 and had no symptoms or contact with others showing signs of Covid-19. Then the nurse brought me back into the room for the procedure where she took my blood pressure and temperature and verified that I hadn't had anything to eat or drink within the required time frame.

She hooked me up to some oxygen and attached three heart rate monitor patches to me. She put some plastic glasses on me to protect my eyes. She also inserted a contraption to keep me from closing my mouth all the way.

The surgeon hooked me up to an IV drip himself, explained that it would start with just some saltwater and then he would start the anesthetics. He explained that it would take no more than one to two minutes to kick in and then he'd get started on the procedure.

He commented about it being Friday the 13th and I remember thinking to myself that I really wished he wouldn't have done that. I may not be superstitious, and Friday the 13th may have a history of being a good day for me, but that doesn't mean I want my oral surgeon joking about it minutes before going to town on my mouth!

One of the nurses mentioned that the Winchester Mystery House was doing flashlight tours and that they apparently do this on every Friday the 13th, regardless of the month it falls in. She added that she grew up in San Jose, California, where the mystery house is located, and yet had never actually been to the house.

She also briefly spoke about the Mystery Spot. I've been to two of those myself, one in Santa Cruz, California, and the other: The Oregon Vortex. She apparently had briefly confused those with the Winchester Mystery House.

I can't possibly tell you what happened after that because the next thing I knew, the original nurse who took me into the room was bustling around the room and talking to me about something completely different. My memory is a little bit fuzzy about this still.

She told me to slowly get up off the seat and get into the wheelchair so she could wheel me out to the waiting room. I remember thinking I was standing up slowly, but the upper half of my body didn't get upright quite as quickly as the rest of my body did and I nearly toppled over headfirst.

I don't remember anything aside from that. I don't remember them taking the IV drip out. I don't remember waking up. I barely remember getting out into the waiting room and being wheeled out to the car. My dad says I mentioned something about my ear hurting and I just grabbed at his ear while he was driving me home.

I got home and sat in bed for a while before taking a nap for a few hours. I got four prescriptions, three of which were available for pickup within an hour. I'm supposed to take antibiotics every eight hours and I have a high dose of painkillers that I can take every six to eight hours. There's also an anti-nausea medication but I haven't needed that.

Surprisingly, I've had very little pain. The bleeding stopped within a few hours, the numbness was weird but it didn't stop me from drinking or eating normally. I just ate and drank a little bit slower. The biggest adjustments have been in eating smaller bites and drinking like a regular human without a straw. I'm a big fan of using straws for everything so that's been a bit of a change for me.

The food I've eaten so far has been:

• one large Jack in the Box vanilla milkshake (eaten with a spoon)
• mashed potatoes
• one fruit smoothie (eaten with a spoon)
• one small Dunkin frozen coffee (eaten with a fork)
• one medium Dunkin latte
• buttered pasta
• mashed potatoes

The pain was completely inexistent all of Friday and Saturday, surprisingly. I've barely used any of the pain meds I was prescribed.

Today is Sunday (day 3) and my jaw is so unbelievably sore, though. Well, more so stiff than sore. I feel like I can't really open my mouth and my words sound muffled to me when I talk. I had three teeth removed but all the pain seems to be localized to just one of those three areas.

Last night it looked like I may have had a little bit of bleeding and I'm not entirely sure why. So today I reverted back to 100% mushy food that doesn't require any chewing and I've been practicing my ventriloquist skills by talking with as little jaw movement as possible. Good thing I was already relatively decent at it I suppose!

Overall, I'm honestly just surprised by how little pain there's been. It certainly isn't comfortable by any means, but discomfort is something I'll gladly accept over pain any day.

Considering all the horror stories I've heard about wisdom tooth removal procedures, I think I've had quite the luck of the draw here. Everything feels swollen right now, although my face doesn't really look it. But my tongue feels too big for my mouth and my cheeks feel sensitive, the same sensation I get when I bite my cheek and then it feels like I have to slightly puff out my cheeks a bit before fully closing my jaw so that I don't bite the same spot again.

I don't really have any set procedures to follow. I'm supposed to brush normally with a soft toothbrush, avoiding the incision areas, and rinse lightly with salt water at least three times a day but I can barely open my mouth enough to get the toothbrush in there let alone move it around to brush. I don't need to clean anything out with a syringe like my friend mentioned doing. I haven't had any serious pain. It's honestly no worse than when I had braces and got the expander adjusted or had to tighten my rubber bands. It's just like my teeth are adjusting a bit again.

I had one tooth that was almost a very minor snaggletooth despite the fact that I had braces, I'll have to check if that's straightened back out now that I have more room in my mouth again.

The moral of my story here is that losing my wisdom teeth hasn't been nearly as bad as I was expecting, and it probably won't be for you either. Perhaps it just depends on the oral surgeon, or perhaps it really does just come down to luck. But it seems that either direction it could go, most everyone will tell you a horror story before you go in, and follow up with an "it wasn't actually that bad" story after it's all said and done.