I'm new here too!

Hi everybody!

I have registered as a user now, after reading this forum for a while. My "name" here being FinnishGirl, that should tell you that I live in Finland and speak Finnish as my mother tongue. So please be understanding to a funny way of saying things... But I haven't found any Dental Phobia Forum in Finnish, so I'll write in English.

OK, this is my situation: I am going to have a wisdom tooth operation ON THURSDAY !!!!! That is the first time EVER to hav anything more than a cleaning done to my teeth. Never had to. I go to dentist regulary for check-ups, and I'm always scared that there will be something wrong with my teeth and the dentist will actually have to do something. Now that has happened.

I thought I would ask for general anesthesia (no idea about spelling but hope you understand). And I did. But there was a problem. The town I live in isn't that big. The only date for GA was not possible for me. And they would have taken all my wisdom teeth out at the same time then. So I had to overcome my fear and agree to do it with oral sedation. I know diazepam (whatever the trade name is where you people live) works very well for me, BUT... Sometimes I'm still terrified. Will I be able to do it?

Well, I hope I can soon write to Success Stories! On Friday I'll do that. (Not Thursday, I won't write to Internet when I'm under the influence of diazepam.) Or if it won't be a success story, I'll tell you what happened anyway.

Hi FinnishGirl ,

I hope Thursday will go really well for you ! Wishing you the best of luck!! Let us know how you got on.

And by the way, your English is excellent !

Hi there. I've never had diazepam (is that valium?), but I thought I'd write and give you some encouragement about the wisdom tooth extraction. Two weeks ago I had the top left wisdom tooth removed and it wasn't that bad. If anything, the 'aftercare' of trying to remember to not drink from a straw, not spit, not drink hot liquids or pop..etc seemed harder than the actual extraction. Just remember to take your pain meds on schedule..before it starts to hurt. Staying ahead of the pain is the key to keeping it painfree.

My tooth was fully erupted, so I'm sure that makes it easier too. I need the bottom one taken out also, but opted to only do the 1 for now. I wish I had done them both at the same time now because it really does take a good couple of weeks before you feel confident to eat something on that side....and now I'll have to go through this all over again. Of course, it's easy to say that now when I was so scared to even get one pulled! lol

Anyhow, I'd also suggest nitrous oxide if they have it. It relaxes you to the point of not caring what they do. As a final note, it sounds like you are young, and that is exactly when you should have these out! The roots aren't fully developed yet and that should make the whole process a little easier than for someone ancient like myself (51).

Good luck on Thursday and ask for nitrous!!! You'll be just fine...and remember to take your pain meds as soon as you can after the procedure. Oh..and stock up on some easy to eat foods that are high in nutrition. Eating good food helps you to heal faster.

Thanks for both answers!

Jane123: Yes, I'm pretty young, 18. My wisdom tooth is not fully erupted (thanks for a new word in my English vocabulary!) so a surgeon will remove it. I don't know if that's worse than your case. And I'm used to take pain killers on scedule because I have horrible period pains. Nitrous oxide... I'm not sure. I've never tried it, and the things I read about it on the internet didn't sound so nice. I know fron previous experience (not with a dentist) that diazepam will probably make me feel a lot better, not really caring about what's going to happen. I suppose that's Valium, by the way. But I'm not 100% sure about that. The trade name here is Diapam, but it comes from a Finnish drug company. In Finland there's nothing called Valium.

I have bought some baby food... My problem about eating after the operation is that I'm allregic to soya. Dentalfearcentral.org suggests putting tofu in foods. No way, I'm allergic! So I'll eat baby food which includes meat.

letsconnect: About my English. I know it's pretty fluent. But it's not my mother tongue. While writing this, I've used a Finnish-English dictionary a couple of times and stolen a word from Jane123. I may write something that sounds a bit odd... in that case you are aware of that I write in a foreign language. Then there is this cultural difference, too: Finns tend to underestimate their skills, also language skills. It's basic modesty in Finland. It's not considered to be OK to praise yourself too much. This is a problem when applying for jobs abroad, I've heard. (and it's typically Finnish that I explain my culture here, we are such a small nation and our habits aren't familiar to everyone)

I feel quite confident about Thursday now. I really want to get rid of that tooth, and after taking Valium I'll be either or , at least not anymore. (As you can see, I discovered these cool smileys )

Your english is just fine. I've got a friend from Finland and she's always apologising for her English too but it's better than mine! Since you can't eat soy/tofu, what about cottage cheese? If you put it into a smoothie in the blender, or into soup, it melts in and you can't even taste it but it adds a lot of protein.

Kajikit, I'll think about that...

It's THE DAY!!! I'm not that terrified yet, but I guess it has something to do with the Valium I took last night. Yes, it worked and I slept well. It was amazing to feel relaxed and calm - it's a long time since the last time! I suppose the drug hasn't completely come out of my system yet and I'm still physically unable to panic. My operation is at 3.15 pm local time (I think it's two hours more than British time, and quite a lot more than American... no idea about Australian time) so I have 5 hours 47 minutes left.

Thinking of you - hope everything goes really well for you

I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to write a longer story to Success Stories tomorrow, but this is the most important thing: it wasn't awful at all!!! The injections (my maybe biggest concern) didn't feel like injections. Incredibly painless. And after that, I felt almost nothing. The operation was really quick. When the surgeon was removing my lower wisdom tooth, I thought he was still examining something - and then it was over! The upper tooth was even quicker. I had expected something horrible to happen, but I was so wrong. If I had knewn it's so easy, I wouldn't have been scared at all. Now I can consider me as ex-dental-phobic. Some medical procedures may still scare me, but I'll never be afraid of the dentist again!

Thanks to a great oral surgeon, Valium and, of course, God, I DID IT!

That sounds wonderful. I'm about to go out the door to my dreaded surgical extraction and reading your post right now is so nice. I'm scared out of my mind but I have some hope now maybe it won't be as bad as I think. So glad things went well for you.

FinnishGirl congratulations! I was thinking about you this morning while I was at my appointment. So very glad it's all over for you and everything went so well. Encouraging to me as I have to have 4 teeth extracted by an oral surgeon soon. Now you given me some new courage!
annaj

Congratulations !! Looking forward to reading your success story - well done !