Wisdom teeth, who needs them?

My dentist seemed to think I’d be better off without mine! So after almost a year on the waiting list, I finally got all four of them extracted at the Glasgow Dental Hospital. It was a gruesome process that involved drilling holes in my jawbone to get the impacted ones out. However, I wasn’t really caring, since they sedated me with Midazolam first. It is pretty good stuff! It’s supposed to cause amnesia, but I definitely have a vague memory of things getting drilled and yanked. I don’t remember getting injected with the local anaesthetic, though, which is usually the part I hate the most.

What I wasn’t prepared for, though, was just how much it would hurt afterwards! About a week after the operation, the empty sockets started to hurt bad enough to keep me awake all night and generally not be a nice person to be around! Apparently I had so-called dry socket, which actually means “Bits of bare jawbone that need washed every few hours to prevent infection”.

So, if you’re having your impacted wisdom teeth out, here is a shopping list of things you might find useful.

  • Soup. Lots of soup. Bananas, porridge, yoghurt and scrambled eggs are good too. Don’t try drinking stuff through a straw, though!
  • Ibuprofen and paracetamol (seem to be the best painkillers for the job)
  • Corsodyl or a similar antiseptic mouthwash
  • Dental mirror and flashlight (if you have a morbid sense of curiosity)
  • Squeezy bottle or large syringe with a rubber tube attached. If you got the dental mirror and flashlight, you’re going to want this too, for hosing the now-visible lumps of food out of your socket holes, before they go septic…

Anyway, enough of this, ugh! 😛

NHS Direct on wisdom teeth
more from the University of Manitoba

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