Positive wisdom tooth extraction stories

[CheddarCheetah]

Hi all,
As a crazy health anxiety sufferer I’ve been glued to forums in the lead up and aftermath of my wisdom tooth extraction. I’m 40, old enough to have had plenty of dental treatment in my life!

Confirmation bias is a real thing and I convinced myself all sorts of terrible scenarios would occur - so I thought I’d post a day by day account of my positive (so far) experience of having a single upper wisdom tooth out. Maybe we can start a thread of positive stories to help those who, like me, turn to forums when their health anxiety goes into overdrive!

A quick bit of info. After months of getting food stuck in between my wisdom tooth and the next after EVERY meal, resulting in soreness and eventually (not too terrible but annoying) pain, I decided to go and visit the dentist (a chore I usually find very intimidating - I hate the dentist). I ended up going private to get it all over with quickly (goodbye £300).

The procedure:
The procedure itself was extremely quick and easy. I had a few injections of local anaesthetic. Only the first one stung a bit (in roof of my mouth). The dentist warned me I’d feel a bit of a lump in my throat from the numbing and he was right - not so much in my throat though but up by my uvula, felt like it was swollen (but obviously wasn’t). Odd at first but got used to the sensation in less than a minute. Then one or two injections more the other side of the tooth which I barely felt. Then he poked my gum to see if it was numb, I felt a tiny scratch so he put a little more in. Then he said he’d poke a bit harder the next time and he was actually loosening the tooth I think: I felt nothing. Then he got the pliers and pulled out the tooth with a bit of twisting and some crunchy sounds (not too alarming). Again I felt nothing and it was all over in less than five mins. The tooth pulling part was about 10 seconds. I bit down on a gauze and was given a script for antibiotics and my aftercare instructions and off I went to get my antibiotics from the pharmacy, worrying I was walking round town looking like a thirsty vampire.

Day 1:
So I was told to take the gauze out after 30mins and to reapply if there was still blood coming out. There was so I did. It still hadn’t stopped 30mins later so I reapplied again. This went on for a few hours and at one point my clot came out on the gauze. Because I was anxious I went back to the dentist and he packed the socket with some little sponges that are meant to encourage clotting. To be honest I think maybe I was doing too much gauze - plus I didn’t wet the gauze first so I think the blood clot coming out was my own fault! Anyway eventually it stopped bleeding later that day and I felt I could finally take some paracetamol. My tooth felt a bit achy (3/10) and where the first injection went in I felt bruised and I had a headache from biting down for hours but paracetamol took it all away.

Day 2:
I took paracetamol all day and it was enough to get rid of the 3/10 pain. Mainly I had a headache from the relief of it being over I think! I avoided straws, hot food and drink, and any hard food. Stuck to soup and yoghurt. All good. Started doing my saltwater ‘baths’ (not swishing but holding the solution on that side of my mouth then drooling it out)

Day 3;
Back to work. Didn’t need paracetamol any more. Stuck to a predominantly liquid diet though as I was now freaking about dry socket. Had mash potato, carrots abd gravy in the evening though which was lush after a couple of days of soup. Started getting my DD’s cold which included sneezing and coughing - freaked out more about dry socket.

Day 4/5
Had some stinging pain at the site - pretty sure it’s an ulcer, feels the same. Also a metallic taste: Got nervous as the clot started to shrink during these two days, but because of the sponges I think it was an oversized clot and my body has been trimming off the excess so it can get with the healing. Now it is sitting just inside the gum line and there is white at the edges which I’m assuming is granulation tissue.

I’m now on day 6. The worst part for me has been my own anxiety. I’m still anxious about dry socket and all the coughing. Im still not back to a normal diet but I’m pretty sure I should be and it’s just my anxiety stopping me. The actual procedure and recovery so far have been fine. I’ll update later but hoping this might help someone else who is nervous and wants to know more detail about what is probably an average experience of a simple wisdom tooth extraction.

Had mine out in hospital under general as apparently very deep and in awkward position

I looked absolutely horrendous swollen face and black eyes BUT mild discomfort healed very quickly I’ve had more discomfort off a filling

Thanks for this. I’m due one out with sedation soon. Wish it was a GA.

Three out in one pop under GA. Two impacted. One dodgy position near my sinuses. Placed on antibiotics as a proportion.

2 weeks off work to recover but no complications, just quite a bit of pain and jaw stiffness.

Had all four out at Guys many years ago with a general, they were massive like dinosaur teeth, they gave them to me in a plastic pot. No pain no swelling.

Have booked DD in for October (not Guys) because she has had Invisalign and needs them out before they sprout. Will be free too - thanks French health system!

My DD aged 24 at the time had all four removed at a dental clinic 18 months ago. She was sedated (away with the fairies but not anaesthetised). The two bottom teeth were growing through horizontally, and top two were close to sinuses, so it was a very delicate op to ensure no nerves were damaged. Had some stitches. She was absolutely fine after, and managed the next few days with regular pain killers. She remembers nothing about the op itself.

Had all four of mine out under GA when I was in my early 20s (impacted, twisted roots and causing issues with other teeth) - I was in first thing, home early afternoon, a couple of days on over the counter strength paracetamol and codeine, then a week of ibuprofen and relatively soft food.

Salt water rinses are a godsend when you can't brush properly near an extraction site - obviously you need to be careful for a few days not to dislodge clots but it took a couple of weeks for all the soluble stitches I had to come out fully and keeping everything as clean as possible and making sure nothing was trapped without scrubbing the extraction site with a toothbrush was tricky.

You will be fine! When I think of how glorious the gas and air was when I was in labour, and that’s not even proper sedation drugs. You won’t know what’s happening and it’ll be over so quickly!

Just to update. I’m on day 7 now (exactly a week after extraction) and my tooth feels way better.

I think if I hadn’t have had a cold and cough at the same time, the recovery would have been easy. The coughing has had me feeling anxious about losing the clot but it’s still in there, though it has definitely shrunk back into the hole and tiny bits have broken off it. When they break of they bleed a teeny tiny bit (like if you picked at a scab you get a little spot of blood where you picked), just for anyone who experiences the same and worries about that, it hasn’t done any harm. I finished my antibiotics yesterday and my instructions said I could stop salt rinsed after 5 days but I’m still going to rinse after every meal I think until it’s a bit more healed.

I ate soft pasta last night for tea with roasted veg that I mushed up a bit. Today I’m going to try some more normal food as I feel like I can. The only pain I’m feeling is a little stinging - like an ulcer, and some sensitivity which I think is OK. I’m going for a follow up today (which I booked myself for peace of mind) so will update again later this week for anyone who is following in future

Glad to see you're in the mend. I had two wisdom teeth extracted on different occasions and they could not have been more different experiences.One was a breeze and I recovered very quickly, but with the other I developed dry socket. Never felt pain like it. Currently I have another giving me grief with repeated infection in the surrounding gum but I hope upon hope I won't need it to be extracted.

I found the fear worse than the pain. As i was lucky it all went well, i was very relieved and thought it went wonderfully!

Thanks for your replies folks. I should update again now. I’m on day 12. On day 7 I went back to the dentist just to see that everything was going ok and he said it hadn’t healed yet but he could see the first layer of gum had healed so I wasn’t at risk of dry socket any more. He told me to go back to normal and eat what I want but to keep doing the rinses once a day either with salt or corsodyl. So since then I’ve been doing a corsodyl rinse in the evening - and a proper rinse too, like swooshing round my mouth. There’s still a bit of a hole there but that takes a while to fully close up and it’s getting smaller. I only get pain if I do something silly (like bite down on a crust of pizza on the socket - that made it bleed a little oops), and sometimes it’s a bit sore at the end of the day if I’ve not been massively careful and have played with it with my tongue (can’t help it!), but it looks really so much better and I keep forgetting I’ve had it done tbh. So for anyone still following, I was back to normal eating on day 8. Just be careful you don’t go too nuts and bite down on something hard!

Fingers crossed you won’t but at least if you do have to have it out then it won’t ever bother you again. Today I had fruit compote on my breakfast for the first time in ages because I hadn’t been eating it due to inevitably getting seeds stuck between my crap wisdom tooth and the next

I had one removed last November, it was a piece of cake. The dentist used numbing gel on my gums so I didn't even feel the injections. The following day I went to a friend's house for lunch, and then to a restaurant for dinner, and ate normally. No issues at all.