July destroyed me.

So, where have I been since the end of June? If you've been following me on Bluesky you might have seen my latest posts mentioning a wisdom tooth that was coming out, and how painful it was.

The pain would not stop, so I went to my dentist, and he confirmed my suspicions: the tooth had no room to come out, so it had to be removed. But after the extraction I would soon be back with new content, right? Well, that went a bit differently.

Now, the operation itself went well, luckily my face did not get swollen, but the pain - before and after removing the tooth - was just so unbearable, and it hijacked almost a month of my life.

To some of you I may be overreacting. It was not a complicated extraction, and it healed without infections or other complications, so it was not the end of the world. There are definitely people dealing with much worse medical conditions, sometimes even chronic ones. I had the privilege to get treatment quickly and I was immensely lucky to have to deal with something temporary and, overall, not too complicated.

Even in this privileged state, I learnt just how insidious a toothache can get. I was unable to function without painkillers, I went on for almost 3 weeks, which is the longest I've ever been on painkillers so far.

My energy levels also dropped egregiously. Before removing the tooth, I was sleepier than usual during the day, and I struggled to sleep at night. After removing it, sleeping became a nightmare. I could only sleep about five hours straight, then the pain woke me up in the middle of the night and I was forced to take another painkiller in order to get back to sleep.

With this absymal combination of pain and poor sleep quality, all my life got somewhat halted, except for work. I haven't published a review on my book-related Substack in two months at this point, because reading is one of the easiest hobbies to drop when I'm exhausted, but also one of the hardest to pick-up again afterwards.

To make things worse, since I had no energy for a lot of hobbies, I relapsed into doomscrolling. Not for hours (my limits are still set up!), but I was definitely more eager than usual. I did not even have enough attention span to watch K-dramas or C-dramas.

All my writing and speaking exercises for my target languages were also halted, as well as any form of practice on some days.

Since hard workouts are not recommended for at least 10 days after the operation, I also had to halt longer walks and pilates.

And, of course, I had neither energy nor ideas to put out articles for Vocal, Substack, whatever.

However, now I'm back. I'll have to reschedule a lot of things in my life, but I have finally fully recovered and I'll be back with my posts as usual.

I wanted to make this article as a way to resume posting here on Vocal, and as a reminder that your teeth are important and, if they cause you pain, it should not be underestimated. If you are going through a post-operation recovery, I feel you and I'm rooting for you. You got this!

Have you ever had to extract a wisdom tooth? How have you recovered? Tell me your experience in the comments below

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