The Tooth Comes Out

On Tuesday I went for the first leg of my marathon run of dental treatment. I had a consultation several weeks ago when I was told in no uncertain terms that my bottom wisdom teeth had to come out. Having decided on a local anasthetic for reasons I will never understand, I went back to the Dental Hospital to have the first tooth removed.

I arrived in good time for my appointment and was surprised to go in slightly early. After making myself comfortable in the chair, I agreed with the dentist that they would remove my lower right wisdom tooth first, the lower left to be removed in four weeks time. After having the proceedure explained to me and going through my medical history for the umpteenth time, I lay back in the chair and braced myself for an unpleasant experience.

I was handed over to a student who administered the anasthetic using an alarmingly large needle. Once satisfied that my mouth was numb, the dentist and student moved in to do their stuff. I'm not entirely sure who did what to start with as, when I saw the student moving towards my mouth with a large scalpel, I promptly shut my eyes and kept them tightly closed for the next 10 minutes or so!

Cutting over, the drilling began. This is by far my least favourite part about visiting the dentist. Having said that, I didn't find it too unpleasant to start with. It wasn't until the dentist said she needed to remove the crown from the tooth that I started to feel a little stressed. I convinced myself that the anasthetic would wear off and that I'd soon be screaming in pain and I became very tense, even crossing my fingers underneath the paper shroud they had draped over me. Thankfully my fears were unfounded and the crown was removed without incident but with a very loud crunching sound.

After what felt like an eternity it was finally time to remove the roots, one at a time. Although I couldn't feel any pain, I could feel the root grinding around in my jaw and I found this rather disquieting. I was relieved when I heard them clank into the tray behind me as it meant my ordeal was almost over. The student finished the job with a couple of stitches and I was given a piece of gauze to chomp down on to stop the bleeding while he explained the post-op care to me. With that, I was on my way, my face still numb and feeling like it had been wolloped with a frying pan.

Graeme picked me up and we went to ASDA for our shopping. About halfway through our shop the anasthetic started to wear off and by the time we got home I was in quite a bit of pain so I took some paracetamol. I was pretty miserable at the thought that this pain would last for any length of time, but within an hour or so the pain had given way to a dull throbbing ache. This was also when my face started to swell up. I had a definite lump appearing on my jaw before I went to bed.

By the time I got up this morning I didn't need to look in the mirror to know that the swelling had grown; my face felt bigger and strangely heavy. A quick look in the mirror revealed that my face was now swollen from my cheekbone to the top of my neck and the swelling seems to have got worse throughout the day. Thankfully, although tender, I'm not in any real pain and even managed to eat a jacket potato for my tea. I'm guessing that the worst is over and things will only improve over the next few days.

In the end, having a wisdom tooth out was nowhere near as bad as I expected. It was certainly an unpleasant experience, but I wouldn't describe it as horrible or frightening (though I do wish the dentist hadn't divulged that she was going to drill my crown off; there are some things you really don't need to know). By far the worst part was having to keep my mouth open unnaturally wide for the best part of half an hour. Now I just have to prepare myself to go through it all over again in four weeks time. Yay.

Lisa xxx