Over the last 8 months I have been to the dentist quite a few times. This is mainly because the first time I went back to the dentist this year, it was the first trip in about 8 years. I thought it was about time to check out my teeth.
Needless to say the trips went well and my teeth were cleaned. I was pretty happy with everything they told me except that my wisdom teeth should come out. I knew they were right, but I really didn’t want to spend all the money before I could get some insurance. So I kept telling that I would do it, but I never made a plan to get them out in hopes that I could handle a few more months. They never really gave me a lot of pain and on a couple times they hurt more than a day.
Eventually I decided to get my wisdom teeth taken out by a surgeon that referred by my dentist. I figured that if I was going to be in China that it would be good for me to not have my wisdom teeth. That way I would not have to deal with them. My feelings were reinforced when I went to consultation and the doctor decided he would rather tell jokes rather than look at my teeth and tell me what was wrong with them. After that I decided to cancel my appointment, which made me happy.
Everything was going well until I returned from a camping trip. The day after I got back one of my teeth was irritated to the point where it swelled and caused pain when I swallowed. I finally had to bite the bullet and decide to get them taken out. I was not really looking forward to dropping a lof of money before I left, but that had to better than needing teeth pulled in China.
After a couple quick phone calls with some dentists and an oral surgeon downtown I was able to schedule my consultation for yesterday and my surgery today. During the consultation I told my doctor that I did not know what was wrong with my teeth, so he explained all that was wrong.
Since my wisdom teeth have been in about 5 years longer than they should have, they have had plenty of time to make themselves at home in my mouth. My two top teeth were a little less troublesome since they had grown in fully. They were just growing at an outward angle and pushing on other teeth. They were also slightly hard to brush behind as well.
My bottom wisdom teeth were a different story. They were impacted, which means that pieces of the lower jaw bone are on top of the teeth and that does not allow them to fully grow in. Even though the teeth were not coming all the way out my gums still wanted to give them a chance by opening a big hole over them. This raised issues because bits of food could make their way under my gums and there would be no way to brush the food out. Eventually they would have probably just rotted out of my mouth. Letting that happen was not an appealing option, so I knew they were definitely coming out.
On top of all this my lower teeth were not only impacted, but they had some nice curled roots which means the extraction was going to be a little more complicated than usual, but what can I expect for waiting so long. Adding insult to injury my oral surgeon warned me about the nerve in my jaw bone which the curled roots of my tooth on the right side of my face. He only said that I might have a numb lip for the rest of my life if he damaged the nerve. That kind of motivated me to pop for the general anasthetic.
I will tell you more about the anasthetic later.