the perc is just starting to kick in

[breakingnews]

I had all four of my wisdom teeth removed earlier today. It went surprisingly quick - about 25 minutes in all, according to the nurse. I had been braced for a nightmarish experience, much like one of my brothers had and a friend who said she felt pain all throughout the procedure but didn't know to speak up because she thought that was normal.

As I wrote some notes afterward, in case this experience proves interesting enough to be included in my memoir, it took me a while to sort through the chronology of the procedure. It's so odd: During the extraction, despite the sedatives and nitrous, I was aware of everything going on. The smells, the tools, the grinding - at times it felt like the doctor was digging in my mouth forever. But now that it's my turn to extract some details from this afternoon, I can't recall much, like an epic dream passing in just a few seconds. It's much like those drunken nights where you're very much in control, but don't remember a thing the following morning.

Disappointing. I had some great ideas while sitting in the chair, but now I can't get a damn word out. That or the percocet is really starting to take hold of my pain (thank god).

Focus: Did the doctor give you your wisdom teeth? I didn't expect them, but I received a plain yellow envelope in my care package with - lo and behold - my beloved wisdom teeth. The two that were impacted are really gross.

[Happy Monkey]

When I had mine done, I also had a blocked saliva gland removed from my lower lip, and the local anasthesia wore off halfway through. I ended up with pain in the back and the front of my mouth, and only able to chew in the middle of my mouth. I didn't have any medication, just the clove flavored packing in the vacated sockets.

So for a couple weeks I was chewing clove flavored food with my canines.

[BigV]

Hey, b-news, congratulations on your emergence on this side of your surgical ordeal. I remain thankfully in possession of all my wisdom teeth, mostly because I have a big mouth, and frankly, I can use all the wisdom I can get. That, plus I have an unreasoning pathological distaste for dentists. Well, what dentists do. I think maybe I was scarred by exposure to Dustin Hoffman in _The Marathon Man_ when I was young and impressionable.

Now that I'm old and ossified, this passage from Neal Stephenson's _Cryptonomicon_, while a delightful read in it's own right, only confirmed that I will live with my wisdom teeth, come what may.

Read at your peril.

[Clodfobble]

I didn't get mine back at the end because they had to smash them up into pieces just to get them out. All four were impacted, and the top two were pointed upwards, eventually poised to erupt into my sinuses. They knocked me out for the whole procedure, but I have one distinct memory of waking up and realizing that my head was being repeatedly slammed sideways as the dentist wrenched as hard as he could with the pliers. Fortunately he saw my eyes fluttering and told the nurse to up the amount of anesthesia coming through the IV.

[Tonchi]

I had a fantastic time getting mine taken out. A case of red wine and a bottle of Percodan. Percocet is for sissies

I got all 4 of mine pulled in Albuquerque back in 1972. My orthodontist had wanted to get them done when I was in high school, but when they described how they were going to do it with just a little novocaine and tying me to the chair while they went at it with a chisle, I said no thanks. As a result, I waited until the pain of the one that was impacted was causing spots in front of my eyes before I inquired about it again. Lo and behold, in the interim they had invented sleep dentistry! All I had to do was leave work at noon, and by 5 pm I was home on the couch watching TV. The most unpleasant part of it was finding out that I was getting a shot in the buttocks to dry up the saliva, THAT part hurt. But the rest of it did not even smear my makeup. The experience was so simple that about 9 months later I had them pull out the molars at the back also, so that I could get braces again and not have to worry about the size of my teeth forcing everything out of alignment like had happened the first time.

It's really too bad you had such a horrible experience. It sounds like you did not get very good advice from the dentist who referred you to that surgeon.

[wolf]

I had my wisdom teeth out in college. I wasn't having any actual problems with them, but my dentist (the one I still go to) advised me that because wisdom teeth have no enamel and are prone to caveties he would be working in the back of my mouth every time I came to see him. So, one appointment with an oral surgeon later, I was scheduled for extraction. I had the work done in the Short Procedure Unit of a nearby general hospital, under full anesthesia. I had two erupted, two partially impacted, and one fully impacted removed. There was another fully impacted wisdom tooth that was so far up into the jawline it was decided they wouldn't do anything about it unless it migrated down and started causing me some problems, since it wasn't worth breaking my jaw to get it.

Yes, the total is six. You are counting properly.

That makes me a very wise mutant.

[Tonchi]

It's how many toes you have that we are worried about, Wolf

[wolf]

I'm not sure. I keep getting distracted and losing count. I think I have all of them.

[breakingnews]

Originally Posted by wolf

but my dentist (the one I still go to) advised me that because wisdom teeth have no enamel and are prone to caveties he would be working in the back of my mouth every time I came to see him.

Oh WOW, I did not know that. I was wondering why the one fully erupted tooth felt like it had a major cavity in it. I'm sure the pliers broke away some of the tooth, but it has a huge, huge, huge hole in it, exposing the inners of the tooth. I'm surprised it never bothered me the way other cavities did.

That was upper left. Lower left was partially impacted, growing in the proper direction. The other two (and yes, only two. Wolf, you weirdo) were growing sideways, with the top of the tooth pressing up against the root of the next molar. Those were completely impacted - I thought the surgeon would be cutting open to get at them, but he just used that <A HREF="http://www.foothill.edu/bio/programs/dentala/images/dentalinst.jpg">small spoon-looking tool</A> (the one on the left) and pried them out. Grody.

I hate dental instruments. The worst is the pick, that sharp, curved, pointy thing with which both dentists and orthos scrape away at your teeth and reveal bad things that require novacaine, drilling and lots of blood to fix.

[russotto]

Percodan and Percocet have the same opiate (oxycodone), but one also has aspirin (ASA) and the other acetaminophin (APAP). The government wants docs to prescribe the one with APAP so anyone who tries to use them recreationally does a horrible and slow death from liver failure.

I had my four wisdom teeth out quite a while ago. It was done under general anaesthesia, which I definitely don't recommend. And the pain meds were delayed, so I got to feel everything when the anaesthesia wore off. That was incredible pain. That's probably why when docs ask me about pain on the 1 to 10 scale, I'm reluctant to go very high unless I'm damn near passed out from the pain.

[LabRat]

I was 20 when I had all 4 of mine out, no complications. I went to an oral surgeon, who knocked me out with gas, and I woke up with a mouthful of cotton. Healed up nicely and I went on with life. I don't specifially recall dibilitating (sp) pain, just laying in bed a lot (it was over spring break). I got my teeth back in a yellow envelope too, and still have them somewhere. The worst thing about the whole procedure was being knocked out. I REALLY hated the weird feeling that it gave me afterward, missing a chunk of time. Creepy. Yes, I have drunk myself into unconsiousness, but this was different somehow. A cleaner cut of a chunk of time or something.

[breakingnews]

Yeah, I was only on nitrous and sedatives - I could feel the entire thing (though numb after novacaine). Afterward, the pain was not bad at all though - nowhere near when I had surgery on my ankle a few years back. Literally, I would have rated it about a 2 on a -10 scale. The ankle surgery was somewhere in the 7-8 range; BREAKING my ankle definitely hit 10.

I should find the x-rays of the steel plate in there - I'll post when I find.

[Tonchi]

Doctors have no sense of humor anymore. Nobody will even take me seriously when I tell them I just want a few Percodans and I will be fine in a day, or two at the most. I don't have an addictive personality and feel no need for any pain medication except immediately following the surgery, while everything is settling back into its new location. I've been cut and diced a lot in the last 10 years and there is always an arguement because they want to give everybody Demerol and not have to fill out any other paperwork. Nowdays I just tell them if I find out they gave me ANYTHING starting with a "D" I will sue their ass. You would think sombody knows by now that Demerol is one of the nastiest drugs in existence, it makes you psycho and completely disconnected, just about as awful a feeling imaginable whether you are feeling pain or not. I suspect they gave our buddy BreakingNews the Demerol Maybe hospitals get a discount on the stuff, I don't know. Lately the docs and I have negotiated down to Vicodin, but I never need more than a few of them anyway and they're getting used to the idea that Tonchi will get up and walk away when she is ready so they'd better have all the diagnoses and explanations ready right from the beginning. Still amazing though, how any junkie in town can get all the Oxycodone they want and I can't even get one Percodan so that I will have a clear head and can type or read instead of play vegital for them.

[chainsaw]

They gave me Demerol a couple weeks ago when I was in the hospital. Apparently, I made some phone calls soon after, which I do not recall. Then they switched me over to morphine (or was it morphine first?). ? ? All I know is that I wasn't conscious of the pain. That's all that mattered at the time.

[breakingnews]

What makes you think they gave me dem? I have not felt psycho and competely disconnected. I have not felt like that since my last LSD trip, which was years ago.