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New wisdom tooth & recovery period

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PatchM

Junior member
Joined
Jun 29, 2020
Messages
3
Location
Australia
So here's my wisdom tooth situation. Start of the year I had some pain on left side of mouth near wisdom teeth. Went to dentist, had infection so got antibiotics and had x-ray then came back for consultation. My top two wisdom teeth have been out for years and dentist said they're fine. Lower left was the infected one and is impacted and needs removal, I was referred to a surgeon because it's near a nerve. Bottom right hadn't come through at all but x-rays showed it did exist. My dentist knows I'm anxious about it at one point he suggested I have all 4 removed and I must've showed quite an expression of horror because he immediately backtracked and said just the one was fine. That was start of February, with COVID popping up I never made an appointment with the surgeon. I've thankfully had no other infections so far but my right lower wisdom tooth has started to come through. Just a tiny piece of the tooth is peeking through the gum at the moment. What's people's experience with wisdom tooth that are only just coming through? Do they often recommend you to just have it removed or wait and see if it needs removal? I was comforted by the idea of only having one side of my mouth affected but I don't know I could stand going through this a second time.

My main question is about recovery period. It's honestly what I'm most nervous about because I'm pretty positive I'm going to be put under for my surgery. It's growing to be my preference as I really like the idea of going to sleep and waking up with it all over and done with no recollections at all. The thought of looking at the surgery site makes me really emotional I worry it'd make me freak out. I suppose I could just not open my mouth super wide when brushing teeth and so on to avoid seeing back there. But do you need to look at the site to check for food in it and things like that? Or can I get away with not looking at it? Does it look really bad could someone maybe describe it to me? I would look up a photo but I don't wanna see something horrible and have that set in my mind after my surgery. I'm fine with gore usually it's just stuff with teeth that freaks me out. If it does look bad at first how long till it starts to look normal? Other thing I hate the idea of is the bleeding situation and gauge. Is it a definite that I'll leave the hospital with gauge in my mouth and have to remove it myself and apply more? Does the bleeding last very long after surgery? I'm 20 at the moment if that makes any difference.

Thanks for taking the time to read all that and for any responses. I don't know anyone that's had wisdom teeth removed so I'm dying to talk to someone. I've read a lot of the wisdom tooth success stories thread but most of them just talk about the surgery. I did find one pretty detailed journal of each day post surgery but that was for someone a lot older and I can't remember if theirs were impacted or not.
 
I just had all 4 of my impacted wisdom teeth removed on the 24th, so I'm definitely still in recovery. I was so scared of the recovery because my wisdom teeth were fully developed so one was sitting on a nerve and another was in my sinus. But the surgery went so smooth which has made recovery even smoother.

On the day of surgery the pain started about an hour and a half after. It mostly hurt in my left ear and some slight burning aches in the extraction sites BUT I took 2 ibuprofen and was good to go. It bled all day so I had to bite on gauze, with only removing them for sleeping and eating a small amount of broth. You will probably be pretty tired that day to do much of anything like I was so it is best to rest rest rest.

The next day was probably the hardest for me but not nearly as bad. I had slight swelling on my right side, a small amount of bleeding that stopped after that morning and a stiff jaw. The most annoying bit for me was that my sinuses were so stuffed up. My nose was running so bad and I was sneezing non stop. Mind you I was told not to blow my nose and to sneeze with my mouth open. The rest of the pain was completely managed with ibuprofen every 8 hours and an ice pack. The sites on this days just looked like blood clots. Nothing gross at all.

Day 3 all the sinus trouble vanished like it never happened. Pain never increased, swelling was going down. But jaw was still a bit stiff. I stuck with ibuprofen every 8 hours, and ice packs. The areas developed white scabs over them, kinda just looked like wet bread. They say that is completely normal and is how the gums heal. Honestly the wounds don't look gross at all, I was nervous to look at them but it's not that gory, just small holes filled with clots, that white film and stitches.

Day 4-5 kept with the pills and ice pack, and soft foods. The white scabs fell off while I gently rinsed my mouth.

Today i woke up and didn't even need pain pills. I'm still on a soup diet because I'm paranoid of getting food stuck or knocking out a clot. But it should be getting even easier from here on out.


If you have any other questions just let me know, I really hope you have a great recovery. Just follow the paper they will give you and you should be good to go.
 
I just had all 4 of my impacted wisdom teeth removed on the 24th, so I'm definitely still in recovery. I was so scared of the recovery because my wisdom teeth were fully developed so one was sitting on a nerve and another was in my sinus. But the surgery went so smooth which has made recovery even smoother.

On the day of surgery the pain started about an hour and a half after. It mostly hurt in my left ear and some slight burning aches in the extraction sites BUT I took 2 ibuprofen and was good to go. It bled all day so I had to bite on gauze, with only removing them for sleeping and eating a small amount of broth. You will probably be pretty tired that day to do much of anything like I was so it is best to rest rest rest.

The next day was probably the hardest for me but not nearly as bad. I had slight swelling on my right side, a small amount of bleeding that stopped after that morning and a stiff jaw. The most annoying bit for me was that my sinuses were so stuffed up. My nose was running so bad and I was sneezing non stop. Mind you I was told not to blow my nose and to sneeze with my mouth open. The rest of the pain was completely managed with ibuprofen every 8 hours and an ice pack. The sites on this days just looked like blood clots. Nothing gross at all.

Day 3 all the sinus trouble vanished like it never happened. Pain never increased, swelling was going down. But jaw was still a bit stiff. I stuck with ibuprofen every 8 hours, and ice packs. The areas developed white scabs over them, kinda just looked like wet bread. They say that is completely normal and is how the gums heal. Honestly the wounds don't look gross at all, I was nervous to look at them but it's not that gory, just small holes filled with clots, that white film and stitches.

Day 4-5 kept with the pills and ice pack, and soft foods. The white scabs fell off while I gently rinsed my mouth.

Today i woke up and didn't even need pain pills. I'm still on a soup diet because I'm paranoid of getting food stuck or knocking out a clot. But it should be getting even easier from here on out.


If you have any other questions just let me know, I really hope you have a great recovery. Just follow the paper they will give you and you should be good to go.

Thanks so much for the reply this is exactly the kinda thing I wanted to hear. For the gauze was it easy to remove and put new gauze in place? Like is it hard to situate it correctly or could you just take them out and put new ones in without any fuss?
The surgery sites sound so much better than whatever horror I was imagining aha. That was the major thing I was freaking out about. I'm feeling a lot better about that and think I'll be fine to look at it. Now the only real worry I have is dealing with the gauze but it sounds like that'll only last a day at most. Maybe I'll be one of the lucky ones with minimal bleeding most of the stories I've read mentioned bleeding a few hours afterwards and then it stopping.
Thanks again! I definitely see myself sticking to soft foods for a while after the surgery too as I'll definitely be paranoid about messing up the healing.
 
The gauze isn't hard to situate, they are pretty big so you are bound to have the entire area covered. It's mostly just uncomfortable having to apply pressure for a few hours or in my case all day. I think I wasn't applying enough pressure so it was probably a my bad in that case. It's normal to have some bleeding for up to 2 days. The next morning I dipped black tea bags in warm water wrapped them in the gauze and used those which I think really helped. Just remember, when you go to change them lightly dampen the new gauze. You don't want the dry ones sticking to the forming clots and pulling them out.

Oh and I forgot to mention i did end up throwing up on my ride home from the surgery. From the empty stomach, antibiotics, iv sedation. It gave me some motion sickness. So maybe bring a bag just in case that happens.
 
Hi PatchM,

wisdom teeth removal is probably the most anxiety evoking procedure, even for people who do not struggle with dental visits anyway. I had all of my four wisdom teeth out, with just a local anesthetic (sedation was an unnecessary luxury back then and I haven't been given any options) and was absolutely petrified! However, I must say, it was the quickest procedure and literally the only scary thing was coping with my own feelings of terror and emotions (which was bad enough). The treatment as such was ok, it went really quick and was one of the smoothest things I have experienced at the dentist up to then. Going home, sleeping for the rest of the day, in the breaks in between cooling my face, taking some pain killers. I haven't looked at the extraction sites not even once and didn't care about food. I can't remember any troubles during the recovery, was able to get back to work as a call center agent on third day.
Since you will be having sedation and will only have one tooth removed, I am sure you will be fine.

All the best wishes
 
Hi PatchM,

wisdom teeth removal is probably the most anxiety evoking procedure, even for people who do not struggle with dental visits anyway. I had all of my four wisdom teeth out, with just a local anesthetic (sedation was an unnecessary luxury back then and I haven't been given any options) and was absolutely petrified! However, I must say, it was the quickest procedure and literally the only scary thing was coping with my own feelings of terror and emotions (which was bad enough). The treatment as such was ok, it went really quick and was one of the smoothest things I have experienced at the dentist up to then. Going home, sleeping for the rest of the day, in the breaks in between cooling my face, taking some pain killers. I haven't looked at the extraction sites not even once and didn't care about food. I can't remember any troubles during the recovery, was able to get back to work as a call center agent on third day.
Since you will be having sedation and will only have one tooth removed, I am sure you will be fine.

All the best wishes
Thanks so much for sharing! Peoples stories on here really make me feel a lot better about it all :)
 
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