Wisdom Teeth Extraction And Dry Socket Update

For those of you who have been wondering, I had my wisdom teeth out something like 3 1/2 months ago, which was followed a week or so later by pretty nasty case of dry socket.

Well, the healing process has been continuing slowly but surely. I haven't needed to irrigate the socket for six weeks or so and it looks to be about 3/4 healed.

HOWEVER, maybe a week or so I started to feel what seemed to be part of a popcorn kernel stuck back near the socket from my left lower wisdom tooth.

Now, those popcorn kernels can be NASTY, and I've had dental hygienists extract them from my teeth after having gone MONTHS without eating any popcorn.

I tried the irrigator and everything else I could think of.

FINALLY I got hold of the thing and it wasn't a popcorn kernel.

It was a BONE FRAGMENT.

Yes, boys and girls, getting your wisdom teeth out can be MESSY.

It feels much better now though.

There's no real pain at this point - just a little tenderness on that side if I'm eating something particularly hard.

I still for the life of me can't figure out why the left has been healing so much more slowly than the right.

The right had erupted about half way and the right was completely submerged, but the oral surgeon had MUCH more trouble removing the right one.

On the other hand, I've had friends tell me it takes every bit of four months for wisdom tooth sockets to heal completely and we are not quite to the four month mark ...

Dry Socket!

So everyone tells me that the one thing to try to avoid in this whole wisdom teeth extraction deal is something called "dry socket".

This apparently is where a blood clot does not properly form or is lost prematurely and raw bone from your jaw is exposed to the Hades-like environment of your mouth and you end up with the mother of all jaw aches.

Well, MY oral surgeon said I would know if I had dry socket if my jaw didn't start to feel better by four days after the operation.

WRONG!

My jaw WAS starting to feel better four days after the operation. A couple of days after that things weren't so good.

Now the right side was healing up just fine. The left however had a gaping hole the size of Meteor Crater, Arizon that was picking up every cotton picking thing I tried to eat. You ought to see what happens to a carrot shred from pre-processed salad when you have a hole in your head that big.

Well, I figured that diluted hydrogen peroxide was just enough to "lift" all the crap down in that hole and at least keep it from getting infected.

HOWEVER, apparently that little maneuver even MORE exposed the nerves and my jaw and the throbbing began.

FORTUNATELY I had a follow-up with the oral surgeon scheduled eight days after my surgery, which was yesterday - Friday.

He took a look and was somewhat puzzled. He told me it was the right one that he had trouble with - the right one he had to leave partially there to spare damaging vital nerves on the right side of my jaw. The left, he gave me the distinct impression, was relatively easy.

I'm guessing it's because the left was partially erupted. From the time I was 15 years old the left one had been poking its ugly head through my gums. Most of that time it had a HUGE flap of gum over it that would get inflamed on a regular basis when junk got stuck under it.

Now it's gone.

Drilled, chiseled, subjected to nuclear explosives, pliered and toss in the biohazardous waste bucket.

Replaced with an REALLY nasty THROBBING hole.

The doctor told me he could help me.

"Oh, thank God ...", I'm thinking.

He takes these little, teeny-tiny pieces of gauze soaked in this brown sh*t and starts shoving them in my socket.

Ouch!

He says within an hour I'll be feeling no pain.

He wasn't kidding.

Whatever it was he shoved in my jaw was potent.

It faintly tasted like certain brands of toothpaste.

However, in much less than an hour, my jaw and the better part of my tongue started to go to sleep.

Oh GREAT - I hadn't had lunch yet.

Like an idiot I went ahead and had lunch.

They say most of the experience in eating is from the smell anyway, right?

Don't bet on it.

Not with a boat load of that stuff in your mouth.

Don't get me wrong though.

When you DO have a nasty case of dry socket, losing your sense of taste is a fair trade.

MORE than a fair trade.

It's sort of like that episode of Star Trek where the doctor had to blind Spock to kill the creatures that had taken over his nervous system.

"An equitable trade, doctor - thank you."

Of course when you are healing up from wisdom teeth extraction you drink alot to help you eat, and, sure enough, one of the gauze pads floated right out of the socket.

I think I lost the other one in the shower last night.

Apparently it did the job though - looks like there is some really disgusting scar tissue forming in the socket - yellow in color.

The damn thing is STILL big enough to snag a corn kernel though.

I've been able to get the bigger stuff out once it gets in though.

HOPEFULLY this healing process will get underway now.

I mean - it was a nagging pain on that left side why I got all this done in the first place ...

Update:
Wisdom Teeth Extraction And Dry Socket Update

EXTRA Difficult Wisdom Tooth Extraction

So I get to the oral surgeon this morning and he puts my Panorex X-ray up on the board and starts to plot out his strategy for conquering my wisdom teeth.

First he starts thinking pretty much along the lines I have been thinking since scanning and scrutinizing this thing for several hours since it fell into my possesion on Monday - the tops look like an accident waiting to happen.

Yes, he can pull them, and, in fact, it is generally easier to get out the tops than the bottoms because the bone is softer ...

HOWEVER ...

They're definitely up in the sinuses and they're also somewhat intertwined with the adjacent teeth. Now he said if they ever develop cysts themsevles they might need to come out, but at this point he pretty much concurred with me that the dangers of taking them out now outweighed the potential benefits, so we're leaving the tops in for now.

That was a relief.

Interesting that we reached the same opinion.

"Axinar, DDS" ...

Scares the F*CK out of you doesn't it? :)

Now - onto the bottoms.

Well, the left one looked like it was going to be easier. It was mostly errupted - the front half was way above the gum line.

The right one he had some concern with. It was deeper in and partially entangled in one of the major nerves, but he thought he could get them out.

They hooked me up to an IV and also gave me some nitrous. That hit kind of hard right at first but wasn't all that bad.

Then they started giving me hits of Versed.

I LOVE Versed.

If any of you have the good fortune of ever having to take me through my last days in a hospice-type setting, just have them keep bringing six-packs of Versed until I'm not here any more.

He also gave me a sh*tload of local that knocked out my entire jaw and my tongue.

He started on the left lower wisdom tooth first. There was drilling and pulling and all kinds of rude noises, but, quite honestly, with the heavier level of sedation it was pretty much comprable in discomfort and overall "dentist freak-out factor" to having a large filling. I'm guessing a root canal would actually be a bigger deal.

However, off he went to the right lower.

Now by this time I think the Versed had really hit and I don't remember much of it - but I remember him saying he had to leave part of the tooth because it was so entangled in the nerve.

Of course the right one was actually the higher priority because it had the cyst. Let's just hope in that time that it was open that it didn't have time to pick up some freaky organism that lands me on the news or something.

The right one was SUCH a difficult extraction that he charged me extra for it! Something on the order of $175 extra!

Because they didn't have to give me the stuff that makes you stop breathing, recovery was a little better. It was better even than when I had the steroid shots in my back.

However, I was pretty thoroughly disoriented.

They gave Mrs. Axinar all the recovery directions and off we went for home, stopping at the nearby pharmacy to pick up 'scripts for Amoxicillin, Vicodins, and a Prednisone pack.

Now, I tried to replace the gause but couldn't because I kept gagging. Mrs. Axinar said it was time for them to come out anyway.

A couple of hours later she forced me to eat some angel hair pasta so I could take my Vicodin.

That went pretty much okay, but I can't really CHEW at all just yet.

Worst of the pain so far is that when I try to drink water it gets into the empty sockets and ...

How can I describe this?

Ah, yes ... have someone shove a couple of ice picks in both ears simultaneously and you'll get the general picture.

Bleeding has not been terribly severe - much less than I expected in fact.

So overall we're off to a good start. Hopefully we can avoid dry socket and the rarer complications and be back up and running in a few days.

If not, ladies and gentlemen, it's been a privilege blogging with you ...

Related:
Badly impacted wisdom tooth extraction (not mine) - YouTube

Update:
Wisdom Teeth Extraction And Dry Socket Update - Axinar's

Wisdom Teeth SUCK!

The very X-ray you see before you should be all the proof you need that evolution actually happened.

You see - a sudden shift in diet over the last 10,000 years or so has caused the humble wisdom teeth to do THIS sh*t.

The technical term is "impaction".

Now, if you'll notice, The Axinar has relatively STRAIGHT wisdom teeth, but the top two and the bottom right one never erupted at all and the left one is only half way through.

Now, my dentist told me there was a cyst on the lower right that I think I can make out in this X-ray, but there also looks to be something funny looking on the lower left as well (any dentists out there who can read this?).

Anyway - the current plan is they're coming out Thursday.

With nuclear explosives if necessary.

Mrs. Axinar has been reading all the web sites and telling me what a mess this could turn into.

And, yes, I know I put it off too long.

So ... in order to scare myself even more thoroughly ... :)

Anyone here had wisdom teeth out after 40?

Oh ... and the other morbid thought that crossed my mind ...

Suppose I'm killed in a fiery crash on the way to the oral surgeon ...

They won't be able to identify me with dental records because the dental records are WITH ME ... :)