Badly decayed/broken wisdom teeth questions for dentists

[Susanne]

I never got my wisdom teeth out as a teenager and have put it off for a long time as an adult due to a lifelong dental phobia caused by a terrifying, traumatic childhood experience. Also, when the Covid pandemic began three years ago, our family physician advised not going anywhere, even the dentist, in order to minimize our risk of catching Covid and passing it along to my dad who is in a high-risk category. Since then, my dad has also faced another serious health issue and I recently underwent tendon repair surgery from which I am still recovering, further delaying having my wisdom teeth removed.

Now I am at the point where my wisdom teeth - three of which were more or less fully erupted and the other partially - have all decayed very badly to where there isn't much left of them. As of today, what is left of them and part of the gum tissue around them has begun to hurt. I need to have them removed as soon as possible, hopefully early next week if I can get in to a dentist that quickly. Tomorrow is Friday and none of the dentists in my area are in office on Fridays.

Since my wisdom teeth are in such bad shape, would the dentist still be able to do the procedure with just local sedation? As terrified as I am of having them out, it needs to be done quickly. I am concerned about being sedated because I don't want to put my body through that again after having done that for my tendon surgery. I also don't feel comfortable having it done in a dental office as opposed to a hospital where I had my tendon surgery and am concerned about the cost, as my tendon surgery and subsequent physical therapy have been very expensive.

Also, I am beyond mortified at the state of my wisdom teeth or, rather, what is left of them and I am so afraid the dentist will think poorly of me, shame me or make me feel bad for letting them get to this point. I have been shamed by a previous dentist, which is why I am concerned about that.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Susanne]

Also, how soon after wisdom teeth extraction would a person be able to have a root canal or filling done on another tooth?

 

[Gordon]

Since my wisdom teeth are in such bad shape, would the dentist still be able to do the procedure with just local sedation? As terrified as I am of having them out, it needs to be done quickly. I am concerned about being sedated because I don't want to put my body through that again after having done that for my tendon surgery. I also don't feel comfortable having it done in a dental office as opposed to a hospital where I had my tendon surgery and am concerned about the cost, as my tendon surgery and subsequent physical therapy have been very expensive.

Do you mean local anaesthetic? Sure they could, it doesn't matter how badly decayed the teeth are as far as the anaesthetic is concerned.
You don't need to be sedated if you don't want to be.

Also, I am beyond mortified at the state of my wisdom teeth or, rather, what is left of them and I am so afraid the dentist will think poorly of me, shame me or make me feel bad for letting them get to this point. I have been shamed by a previous dentist, which is why I am concerned about that.

It's one of the commonest things that people seem to be worried about, for 99% of dentists we just don't care how the teeth got to be the way they are, we're "doers" we want to get on and sort things, so mostly we'll be busy working out how to fix the problem, not worrying about why they got that way. It's a shame you managed to find one of the other kind (weird ones)

 

[Gordon]

Also, how soon after wisdom teeth extraction would a person be able to have a root canal or filling done on another tooth?

Immediately if you felt up to it, there's no clinical reason why not.