33 years old and freaked out about wisdom teeth extraction

[anxietyfort]

I have never had problems with my wisdom teeth... All four are completely impacted and horizontal. Never any pain or discomfort. However, after an X-Ray from my last dental checkup, they found a cyst forming around my bottom left one. I was sent to an oral surgeon and had a consult and he want me to remove all 4 in one go...

I have bad anxiety pretty much regularly... I see a psychologist weekly and have tried going on Mede (Lexapro) but felt pretty jacked up on it so I went off about 2 weeks later. When I had a root canal years ago, my jaw dislocated and I developed a phobia of dentist and getting anything done to my mouth. I still have it but I can bare regular cleanings and such as long as I get regular rest periods...

So, this whole deal is just getting to me mentally and physically from the stress. I will be under GA, but that freaks me out a tad because last year I had shoulder surgery under GA (chronic dislocations) and while the surgery went great, I had some odd and unpleasant things happen afterwards that may or may not been associated with the GA (could have just been my crazy anxiety and the pain meds).

Doc says he will have to cut out the teeth in 4 pieces each and my bottom teeth will have to have bone grafts done and my top teeth may need some sort of sinus graft.

Here are my biggest concerns:

• pain after surgery - I halved the narcotics perscibed to me the first week and only took them when I felt it was needed... Took extra strength Tylenol otherwise.
• pain meds after surgery - I don't like narcotics or anything that makes me feel "not myself". They tend to make me feel odd...
• feeling/getting sick after surgery - felt terrible after my shoulder surgery, but didn't actually get sick
• something happening to my jaw to further irritate it - it pops in and out of place ever since that mishap

I have attempted to research things online to help myself understand everything but I keep reading horror stories of people in the "worst pain ever" and getting sick for days after the surgery... It hasn't helped at all! The surgeon gave me a Valium to take 1 hour before and said I could take a Xanax the night before, which I may... I have only had Xanax once and never had Valium. However, the post pain and anxiety freak me out and everything I've read seems to state I can't take any Xanax after the surgery.

Has anyone taken only 800mg Motrin after this surgery? Has anyone around my age had to have this surgery? Hopefully the Internet is just full of bad stories and the people that have the good stories don't bother to speak up...

Sorry this is long... I felt the need to get it out of my system. Thanks for reading!

 

[April]

anxietyfort

The internet is an awful place sometimes, all I could find were horror stories when I was looking too but then realised that no one ever writes about a straight forward dental work. Stick with us, we are a friendly like minded bunch who understand, empathise and encourage

Age wise you are a mere baby I started my dental journey at 47 by having 13 teeth out (including 4 wisdom teeth, 2 horizontally impacted) and 6 implants under a GA.

I had spoken to the anaesthetist before my procedure and asked for an anti sickness jab which meant when I woke up I felt fine, no nausea etc.
Apart from feeling very, very tired I didn't feel to bad at all. I was sent home with antibiotics and instructions to take normal over the counter painkillers every 4 hours. After I got home, apart from being woken up to take my medication, I slept pretty much until the next day and apart from an aching face and jaw I had NO PAIN which was easily taken care of with a couple of painkillers.

I can understand why you would be concerned about your jaw, what does your OS say about it?
Even though I trusted my dentist and my OS I made sure they knew exactly how I felt and what I wanted and didn't want - in fact I told them at great length, frequently ..... yawn!

Keep positive and keep off the internet

 

[anxietyfort]

Thanks April!

Any good stories make me feel better. When I talk to people at work or day-to-day life about it, if they start to look or sound negative, I immediately stop them and go "If it's a bad story, keep it to yourself." I can't do that on the internet and for some reason got sucked into reading bad stories this morning. I woke up feeling extra anxious about it all and started to freak out a bit so I thought researching stuff about the drugs would help and before I knew it I was reading horror stories and thinking "This is really going to suck!"

So you had all 13 teeth out at once and you did just fine on over the counter pain meds? Are we talking stuff like Tylenol or something a bit stronger?

 

[April]

I agree, you don't need to listen to negative stories, read some of the journals here on the success page and you will find plenty of positivity - some of them, like mine, are also good for sending you too sleep

I was taking Brufen and Panadol (which I think is the same as Tylenol) . When woke up I would take two pain killers and then another one every 2 hours - apologies to any medical minded people on here but it's my way of keeping the pain killers 'in my system'

Yes, I was very tired for 24 hours and yes, my face and jaw ached a lot for the first few days but I had no pain and nothing at all like the dramas my imagination had led me to believe.

I know I always say it but the feeling of relief is amazing ..... how I wish I had had it done years ago as it gave me back my life.

 

[anxietyfort]

Yep! Those would be similar to Advil and Tylenol, respectively. Funny all of the different brand names across the world and the popularity of certain brand names in each location.

I remember being in Mexico and my wife got a nasty little scratch from some coral.. We took the bus to a drug store there and tried explaining that we needed something similar to "Neosporin" which is an antibiotic cream. We knew they didn't have that name brand there as it's very specific to the US, but they weren't understanding "antibiotic" so we tried naming some brands we knew of in hopes that a light would come on and we'd here an "ahhh!". Well, we did hear an Ahhh! And walked out with a product called Analgen. When we got back to the hotel, we found someone there that could tell us what it was as we had our doubts.. Turns out it was for sore muscles!