Jaw Breaker
.: My holidays are coming to an end. I’ve been off for two weeks, choosing to stay in Edmonton and keep a relatively low profile. Last weekend my parents visited for three days, and we had a great time. Friend joined us on Friday and Saturday for bbq’s, and on Sunday night my folks attended a band rehearsal so they could see and hear us play. My Dad took a number of photos with my Canon A630 camera, and you can see them here.
On Wednesday, I went to the dentist, ostensibly to have work done on the lower left second molar – the last tooth before the wisdom tooth. When I arrived at his office, he told me that because the lower left third molar – said wisdom tooth – was beginning to emerge from the gum and was visible, it had to be removed before he could begin the crown. I waited while his receptionist called the dental surgeon, assuming an appointment would be made for a later date. I was caught off-guard when she put the phone down and said to me, “Can you go today”? I thought for a moment and said, “I suppose so, sure.” Forty-five minutes later I was in the dental surgeon’s chair, and he was freezing me for the procedure. It didn’t take long, but it wasn’t much fun. I learned afterwards that he had to cut the gum open, and then break the tooth up in the jaw and extract it in pieces. I needed extra freezing four times. I left with a very sore jaw and a swollen face and lower gland that in total was quite uncomfortable. I was given prescriptions for two pain killers and one antibiotic. It took about 36 hours before I began to feel some relief, and the swelling started diminishing by Saturday.
I wasn’t aware the wisdom teeth are normally removed in one’s teenage years. Being considerably past that stage of my life, I can’t even begin to imagine what this experience would be like if I had to have four removed at once. Ugh.
BTW, I can report that I am really enjoying the new Buffalo Tom album, Three Easy Pieces. It’s so good to have them making new music again. And in this article, it is revealed that drummer Tom Maginnis works for EBSCO – good God, there’s a library connection between the band and I! (Even weirder, Bill Janovitz sells real estate.) I so love this band.
August 8th, 2007 at 22:47
I had my wisdom teeth removed at the time I had all my upper teeth removed. I went to sleep and woke a couple of hours later. The pain started soon after and lasted a week. I was 14 or 15 years old and my teeth were pretty much shot. I got the rest out in the early 80’s. That was pretty painful too. I haven’t been to the dentist since. Well, once to get my teeth relined in the early 90’s, but I dropped them off and went to work. They were dropped off that afternoon. Nothing like someone one working on your teeth while you do something else. Much less painful. Mind you dentures have their drawbacks. On the other hand they are good for scaring children.
August 9th, 2007 at 04:36
I had my wisdom teeth removed at the time, because as my then dentist said, “You’re mouth isn’t big enough”. Some back in the day though, might have argued differently. 🙂
Only 3 wisdoms had to be removed because that is all I had. One was never there. IIRC, I think it was the upper left.
I was awake for the whole procedure. Three large freezing needles were put into each quadrant of the back of my mouth. Dentist then waited about 20/30 min. until everything was frozen solid. Then the procedure began.
The dentist, Dr. Ip, used a tool that can only be described as something similar to pliers. He grabbed each tooth, pulled forward and told me to pull my head back in the opposite direction. Two of the teeth came out fairly quick. The third one, upper right, IIRC, it cracked/shattered upon the initial grab. Had to stop, clean out my mouth of any flying debris and start again.
I didn’t feel much while under the needles. However, once the freezing wore off a couple hours later, it was major pain for the better part of two to three days. The 292s or whatever it was the dentist gave me, caused me to be nausiated and did nothing for the pain. Consequently I missed 2 days of work, something very rare for me.
Becuase the removal of the teeth was prettty clean, my face/jaw did not swell up or discolour at all. Looking at me, you could not tell that I’d had the wisdoms removed. The pain told a different story, but in this case, no one could see the cause of that pain.
August 7th, 2008 at 08:56
If your really could come down here to Hawaii for a spell … I want to hear you sing about There’s no one more Irish than Barak O’Bama … I’ll be looking for you and to make you feel at home a neighbour is from Limerick.