The gory details - part 3

After the whole thing was stitched up, gauze was put into the mouth to stop the bleeding. Press on it... ok sounds simple enough. So I hold my jaw shut to keep the pressure on. After the anesthetic wears off, however, keeping the pressure on starts to become painful. And it's constant. Hey, after the anesthetic wears off, a lot more things start to hurt. I'm taking painkillers but they don't really deal with all the pain. Agony and pain. This is when you ask... when will it end! It's not the sharp pain but it's a dull radiating pain that doesn't stop. It goes on, hour after hour. You start to ask yourself, when will it end. When? When? WHEN????!!!

You try to take your mind of it. Think happy thoughts, surf the web, watch Tv or distract yourself and it works somewhat, but very little.

I haven't even talked about the swelling. Yes, imagine a golf ball growing slowly out of the side of our face. The jaw starts to swell and the pain and discomfort increases. No chewing, so it's just liquids. (You start to lose a bit of weight... which is a good thing, I guess).

Then fever too! Yup, got a fever.

So can you imagine, 5 days and nights of that? 5 days!!!
Only on the 6th day, things start to improve dramatically. Swelling starts to go down, fever goes down, pain gets less, jaw starts to be more mobile. Solids are easier to chew! (In my mind, for some reason, I'm thinking... KFC, KFC, KFC)

All I can say is... I'm grateful it's all over!!! No holiday. Some people said I'm lucky to be away from the office on medical leave. Right! Why don't you try it? A tooth can cause so much discomfort... so much to learn from this... but the lessons later. Wanna see my tooth? : )

The gory details part 2

Previously on this blog...
Alex is in the oral surgeon's chair with his mouth open, gums cut open and a drill being used to chip away bone at the back of his mouth, in order to remove a horizontally impacted wisdom tooth...

The surgeon is going at it, drilling, prying, poking and manipulating with all the instruments at his disposal. After removing bone and making enough space. It's the tooth's turn. A rather big tooth, the surgeon sections it. He decides to section it into two. The drill starts again... brrrr... it's cutting up the tooth.

All this while I'm staring at the ceiling and lights. My mind is wondering how much blood is all over my mouth. Can't taste or feel much, everything is numb. Just pressure here and there. Though you don't feel any pain, it's the mental torture of wondering what's happening in your mouth that requires so many pieces of equipment.

After the tooth is sectioned, the surgeon slowly manouvers the first half out. It takes a few minutes but he wants to get it right. The first half is removed. After that, some more instruments go in to probe, prod and manouver the second half of the tooth out. As the the tooth is moved around, you can hear/feel the scratching of the tooth against the bone.

The tooth is out. The surgeon puts some homeostatic compound into the now gaping wound to help the blood (which by this time there must be lots of it!) clot. He then takes this thread and stitches the wound. I think it was 4-5 stitches. It's strange to have someone pull a thread in your mouth and tie it up.

A few more things to clean up the wound and the doctor is done... is this the end? or the beginning?

The gory details...

The time most feared was here. It had to come out. No other choice. It was causing me trouble, so it had to go.
X-rays showed that the nerve was very close to the tooth. On the X-ray the nerve was just besides the tooth, very close. The surgeon did warn me that there might be nerve damage because of the proximity of the nerve. Oh no... that would mean I wouldn't be able to feel in my lips and chin on the right side... (KISSING WILL BE WEIRD...)

Horizontally impacted lower wisdom tooth, which means my wisdom tooth was facing the tooth in front of it. Yup, not coming out straight upwards but forwards.

As I sat there in the chair, I was praying, God, please, no nerve damage! God please lead the surgeon's hand away from the nerve!

Started with some painful injections into parts of my mouth to numb it out. Ouch! More painful than it looked! Winced with pain. Came back to test it, not numb enough... another round of injections!

When I was ready, the surgeon started to cut through my gums and open it so could get to the tooth. Long cut at the back of lower jaw. Then after opening the gums up, he had to take away bone with his drill. After removing some bone, he could then start to work on the tooth. He had to remove more bone than usual as I'm a bit older so the bone is harder and less flexible. If not, he could have spread the bone a bit more.

All this time while lying there I'm imagining that blood must be all over the place. The nurse has her suction thing in my mouth sucking up whatever. The drill is going at it... with no mercy. But there's nothing I can do. No place to run, no place to hide. Think happy thoughts... think happy thoughts... not with a drill and a suction in your mouth and this bright blinking lights in your eyes. What's going to become of me? (This was not my first wisdom tooth operation, I had the other side removed I think 7 years ago)

All the while the surgeon is reassuring me... "good", "open wider", "turn a little towards me", "painful?"

Is this the end? What will happen of my mouth? Can I kiss normally after this? Why me?

Blogging about dental surgery

Someone has requested I blog about my experience getting an operation to remove my impacted horizontal wisdom tooth. I'll try, once I get over the pain, fever and swollen jaw/cheek...

tomorrow is the surgery!

am I making a big deal out of it! You bet I am!!!!

Dental Surgery Cometh...

I'm only a few days away from getting my wisdom teeth operated on... uurrgghhh!!!

Commando

Ryan is like a commando... crawling everywhere. Trying to climb up and down surfaces without much fear.