How much does getting your wisdom teeth out suck?

[NickB79]

I've been putting it off for a couple years now, but now they're starting to hurt, and a couple of my front lower teeth have moved a bit from the pressure of the emerging wisdom teeth. So truthfully, how much did it hurt, and how long did it hurt for? Did they have to put you under, or were you awake when they carried out the procedure? What kind of pain medication did they give you, and how well did it work? Thanks.

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. It sucks as much as you let it

and then it passes, and all is goodness.

[Diego360]

2. Few months ago, I had three removed at same time

and it wasn't really a big deal. You go in, they hook you up to an IV and you wake up an hour later, all done. Bleeds for a few days after and there is some minor pain, but that's what the percoset is for.:silly:

[Demonaut]

16. Had one side removed when I was in the service and bled five days

and had a lot of pain , that was 18 years ago and I still have the other side still in.....it sucked

[disgruntled_goat]

3. my experience was good

I went, they knocked me out, did the deed, and somehow they later poured me into the car and my wife drove me home.
I had swollen & yellowed cheeks for < 1week, but with very little pain.

good luck with that.

[radwriter0555]

26. I had my 2 tops pulled out with no gas, and went on a date that night

actually.

I had soup, granted, but he never even noticed.

No swelling, no bleeding. Slight discomfort.

Of course I'm the chick who told the ER docs how to re-set my dislocated knee without any pain medication too, couple months back.

Tough chick.

[Lizz612]

32. Tough chick is right!

Ouch! Dislocated knee, with no meds, I'm in awe!:wow:

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. Having them removed before you need it beats the living HELL out of

needing it done. I will never forget the day i had to have the first one removed. I went to work feeling sore in my mouth and by noon the pain was so bad i couldnt see straight. The drive from work to the Dentists office was an exercise in alternate pain management. I was pushing on my right jaw with my fist so hard i bruised the skin and muscle.

GET IT TAKEN CARE OF.
A Dental surgeon will put you under with Sodium Pentathol (a wonderful drug if there ever was one) and you will wake up an hour or two later feeling juuuust fine. The recovery was a few days for the healing and then back to the Dentist to have the stitches removed. That was around 1980 or so. Might be a different procedure now, but the effect is the same.

[ClintonTyree]

5. I had five out at once...............

4 wisdom teeth (2 impacted, surgically removed, 2 simple extractions) and another that had broken off and was irreparably damaged. This was 25 years ago by the way, I'm sure they've made advances since then. It all depends if the extractions will be simple or surgical. There is much less pain if they're simple extractions.
First, they'll give you sodium pentathol, local anesthesia and probably something else (Valium?) as well. Don't worry, you'll be WELL sedated, you won't know what's going on. Afterward, they'll give you either codeine w/Tylenol or hydrocodone for about a week.
Pain? You will be hurting for 2-3 days during which everything you eat will be in liquid or mashed form. After that you will be sore for a few weeks after, but not unbearably so.
The upside is no more infections and a healthy mouth after that.
My daughter had all four of hers out last year and she was hurting for about 2 days, after that she was fine.
The big thing is to keep washing your mouth out with salt water to prevent "dry socket". Even if that does occur, it's not that big of a deal.
Good luck, I'd do it over again if faced with the same situation. My impacted wisdom teeth were constantly getting infected and there is now medical evidence that those infections influence other aspects of your health such as coronary issues.
Have it done and get it over with, you'll be glad you did.

[VOX]

6. It's not that bad. Seriously.

In fact, the pain was greater beforehand. There was soreness and tenderness, but it got better quickly.

Don't worry about being put under a bit. Anasthetics have improved so much in recent years -- you're never under too deeply, bu just enough so you either fall asleep or you don't care -- and this is not bad!

I was given some pain meds, but I didn't need them as the discomfort wasn't that intense.

If your dentist/oral surgeon is competent, you won't regret getting those bad boys pulled. Good luck! :toast:

[AlienGirl]

7. All four removed at once...

Light general anesthesia, percoset afterward, it hurt for about a week. It sucked, but the percoset made it suck less. YMMV.

Tucker

[maggrwaggr]

8. It sucks but the RX's you're gonna get make up for it.

Make sure you get some goooood prescriptions! One of my few fond memories of Christmas shopping is back when I had my wisdom teeth taken out and I was floating around a goddamn mall in Oklahoma high as a kite on codiene. It made Christmas shopping bearable and even kind of fun.

[Mobius]

9. IT SUCKS!

I had four impacted wisdom teeth. I awoke in the middle of surgery to chips of my teeth flying out of my mouth, and a maniacal grimace on my surgeon's face. I got dry socket, because I wasn't stitched up well enough. If I hadn't had Percoset, I'd likely be dead! Good Luck :hi:

[theoceansnerves]

10. i recommend

being awake for it!
seriously. they give you either option but of course 'strongly' recommend the general instead of the local. being awake is an entirely different experience, of course it doesn't hurt or anything, but it's interesting to see how much drilling and twisting and crunching they have to do to get them out. i had all four removed at once, and you're supposed to give yourself a day per tooth to recover. well one of mine got infected and another one developed a hematoma (some weird abnormal blood clot) so my recovery actually took about six weeks. i was prescribed a cocktail of vicodin w/aceteminophen and 1000mg ibuprofen pills, so at least there wasn't any pain. you also have to have a series of panoramic x-rays done beforehand and it's pretty cool to take a look at those...

[izzie]

11. Every think only takes a little time and then it is done.

You can put up with anything if your look at it that way. The thinking about it is more painful.

[OhioStateProgressive]

12. had four impacted ones removed last year

i got a local and sat awake throughout

it is uncomfortable...it bleeds alot afterwards

can't eat much food for awhile

make sure to get some percocets or vicodin

6 months from now you will be glad you got them removed though,a s the pain of keeping them can be alot worse

[Seldona]

13. Not that bad.

Just watch out for those dry sockets.

Never had pain like that before in my life.

[DS1]

14. It depends if they have to cut into the bone of your jaw or skull or not

In the big picture, nothing dental is ~really~ that bad, it's not like you're losing a leg or anything :shrug:

[eyesroll]

15. Mine wasn't bad at all

I have a high pain tolerance, but a very low nausea tolerance. General anesthesia makes me really nauseous, so I don't do it unless I have to.

I was awake for my surgery. I had all four out at once (something the oral surgeon recommended against, since I was awake for it, but I didn't want to take off from work twice). Three impacted, one normal. I would not recommend being awake for surgery unless you also have a high gross-out threshold -- my surgeon had a student, and he was explaining the procedure the whole time. I found the whole thing pretty cool, so no problem.

The novocain injections stung (the same way they always do). There was pressure but no pain during the extraction process. My jaw was achy and sore for a couple of days. Rubber gloves filled with ice helped.

I got a prescription for codeine, but I never filled it. I took Advil and was fine. (I react poorly to narcotics -- again, nausea, and I wake up feeling worse -- so that's also something I avoid if I can.)

Good luck.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

17. Three ones perfect, no need to remove, but the lower left one...

...decided to grow horizontally, towards the next molar. I don't even want to go into the details. Suffice it to say I had tiny pieces of my jaw being expelled through the gum for about a year.

[fudge stripe cookays]

18. Unpleasant, but you can do it!

I had mine done right before New Year's in 1986. The timing was NOT my idea. It was my mom's. I was home from college, and she arbitrarily selected that time. I could have killed her.

They put me completely under. First the mask with laughing gas, then the needle in the arm. I had four out, and they found a fifth impacted molar, so they pulled it out too.

The most unpleasant part was the gnarly taste in my mouth for days, and those huge socket holes I kept wanting to mess with with my tongue.

The part that sucked was having the stitches still in, and not being able to eat or drink anything at New Years (especially champagne!)
I just remember being completely utterly miserable. I'd broken up with my boyfriend in November and was still smarting from that-- major amounts of drugs, and bad Bon Jovi videos on MTV 24 hours a day. Blegh.

But once it's over you'll be so glad you did it. You don't want your real teeth moving anymore! You don't need braces later on top of everything else!

[SOteric]

19. Mine were badly impacted

and required complex surgical procedures because I have a very small jaw. I did need to be anesthetised, but the joke was on them 'cause instead of knocking me out it just made me chatter like a magpie on crack. Not the best result for oral surgery.

In spite of all the difficulties, the procedure went quite well. I was sore for a week, had to eat very soft things for 3 or 4 days, - and then all was well.

On a scale of 1 to 10 of things that have been hard to deal with in my life (with 10 being the mega-bummers) it maybe rated a 3.

[Astarho]

20. Had them taken out one at a time

over several years. For the top ones, the dentist did it in about a half hour each time. All it took was some novocain and then tylenol afterwards. Only bothered me about a day or so.

For the bottom one (badly impacted) I had to go to an oral surgeon. Just with Novocain (I have a history with oral surgeons so I want to know exactly what they're doing in there), but I could feel them digging down into my jaw to get the roots out, it was a weird feeling. Had to get the Vicodin for that and it made me sick. The pain was the worst for a day or two, but after a week I was OK.

[Nikia]

21. It was horrible

I don't know if it was as bad as my mother's experience. She said it was worse than giving birth.
I was awake for mine. I never had novacaine injections before so they really stung. I was going to go without laughing gas but changed my mind rather quickly. I had two soft tissue impactions and 2 hard tissue impactions.
Each of the three last teeth had to be renumbed while they were being removed. I started to feel the pain. They used lots of different instruments like a cicular saw and crow bar (Is that what they really were?).
When it was over, I thought that my traumatic experience would be over. Unfortunately, the novacaine in my extraction spots wore off in less than a half hour while leaving my tongue and middle front of my mouth numb for a few more hours. They perscribed Vicodin which wasn't strong enough for the pain. Unfortunately, after three doses, I was vomitting from it and decided not to take it any more. I couldn't eat for about 24 hours because I was nauseous from it and was still bleeding.
I had it done on a Thursday afternoon and called in on Friday. I rested all weekend icing my jaw. I went back to work on Monday still in pain. Over the next few days, the pain faded.
The pain was the worst substained pain, lasting more than a few minutes, I have ever felt.
Overall, I recommend being knocked out and strong non nauseating pain killers.

[Mercurius]

22. Just pray to God

that you don't have to have them cut out. Damn, damn, damn that hurt. I was in bed for four days.

[Heddi]

23. I didn't have a problem at all

I had the two uppers removed at once, and then a few years later, the two lowers.

I only had them taken out because they would 'pop' in and out a few times every year--left me in extreme pain---for months at a time they'd be under the gum, then slowly start to break through, then go back under....

So I had the top two taken out when I was about 23 or so. LITERALLY it took the dentist longer to administer the Novocaine than it did to take the teeth out. Like, they were out in less than 2 minutes.

Last year or the year before I got my bottom teeth taken out. Again, the two of them were out in a flash, and I went back to work afterwards and the only pain I had (a mild throbbing) was taken care of with advil.

In both times, i was awake, and only got whatever it is (novocaine?) that they shoot into your mouth.

I was told by my first dentist that the tops are easier to take out than the bottoms b/c the top teeth generally grow straight up, so they can just be pulled out, while the bottoms sometimes grow at an angle, that's why I waited (I ended up moving and getting a new dentist, etc etc).

I'm a BABY when it comes to mouth pain. I have a high pain threshold, but hate tooth pain--seriously. The worst part was honestly getting the numbing shot.

When the Dr took out my bottom teeth, I was awake for that too.

In both cases, they have this little wrench thing that fits over the tooth and they just wedge it out.

The pain aftewards...not really pain. Just a throbbing. Went away within a day and a half or so, and was completely bearable. Felt like I got punched in the jaw, but I was able to function, go back to work, eat dinner, etc.

Be careful, tho, with regards to dry-socket once you get the teeth pulled.

If you smoke, You CANNOT SMOKE after you get your teeth pulled. There is a blood-clot that forms in the hole where the tooth was, and if you smoke, you can dislodge the clot and cause all kinds of nastiness. I think what happens is the gum heals from the outside in, and if you smoke and dislodge the clot, crazy things happen and cause a pocket of unhealed gum on top of healed gum and it's crazy painful (from what I've heard).

Also, you can't drink out of a straw for the same reason.

The Dentist will probably also give you a little plastic-tipped hypodermic looking thing that you fill with salt-water and flush out your socket at night to get rid of any food and gunk that could have made its way into your mouth hole. It also helps to quicken the healing of the open socket.

Good luck! It's not a bad procedure!

[ThoughtCriminal]

24. Dread was worse than proceedure.

For me.

[cmf]

25. I had 4 bony impacted wisdom teeth out 2 weeks ago.

I had a pretty complicated extraction. My two lower teeth had very deep roots that were curled around the nerve running through my jaw.

My doctor gave me something like a Valium to take before the surgery, and this really helped calm my nerves the day of the surgery.

They put me under, although I do have a recollection of coming-to during the surgery. I felt pressure on my gums and a sound much like a dentist drill. I went back to sleep a few seconds later, though.

The next thing I knew, I was in the chair with gauze in my mouth. They wheeled me out to the car and my husband took me home. There I ate some yogurt and took a prescription strength Ibuprofen and an Endocet (narcotic with acetaminophen). I took the Ibuprofen every six hours, and the narcotic every 4 hours for the first couple days. After I got home from the surgery, I slept about 3 hours, and then I was up the rest of the day. They told my husband that I would be out of it most of the day, but I wasn't, so I think it varies from person to person.

The pain medications worked really well for me. The only time I would find myself in pain is when I woke up in the morning, if I slept longer than 6 hours a stretch. I was off of the narcotics by the time I went back to work (4 days later), and I was done with the ibuprofen a couple days later. For a few days after being done with the prescription strength ibuprofen, I took OTC Motrin 3x a day. I was totally off all medications about 9 days after the surgery.

I didn't have any bad side effects, except for some numbness in my chin, which gradually subsided. I did have some swelling in one of the surgery sites, but I swished with salt water and irrigated it regularly and it subsided. I didn't have dry socket, nausea or nerve damage - all of which I was really worried about.

All in all, it was not the horrible experience I imagined it to be. Good luck!

[ulysses]

27. not *that* bad. (pictures of teeth within)

It hurt, in quickly fading degrees, for 3-4 days, as I recall. They put me under, at my insistence - don't do it any other way. Not sure what meds they gave me, but it was only for a couple of days, so probably a narcotic of some kind.

They put them in a bag and handed them to me on my way out...on edit - the weird-looking one at the top middle had fused partly to the jaw bone, thus the appearance. :)

[Kitsune]

28. All four at once

Went to an oral surgeon. Laughing gas --> IV line (wheeeeeee *snore*) --> yank them suckers ---> "Hey, why am I in the car...?"

I literally don't remember a thing about it except that the painkillers they gave me (percodan or something) make me really nauseous, to the point where a couple days in I said "fuck it" and dealt with the pain. At least I could sit up and use my computer without feeling like I was gonna spew. I lived on applesauce and ice cream for like, a week.

Then I got dry socket (well, dry socketS...three of 'em) and they jammed some fucking CHIVES in them to make them heal faster (?), which made me even more nauseous than the damn percodan. Ugh.

But yeah. Despite the crappy painkillers and the dry sockets, it wasn't so bad.

[Pithlet]

29. I had my bottom ones out, and it wasn't that bad.

I didn't get any anesthetic, just a shot in the gums that really hurt. I didn't know that was an option. Recovery wasn't bad either.

I have to get my top ones out, and those will probably be harder. I've been putting it off.

I want to wait until after my cat scan tomorrow. If that's okay, then I'll worry about my teeth.

[Terwilliger]

30. It beats the hell outta root canal

[tom_paine]

31. Middle of the road wisdom teeth experience

My two lowers had wraspped around my jaw, so instead of the normal 1 hour, I was in the chair for 2. And yes, towards the end I could feel them poking and prodding around in there. It hurt a little and they couldn't give me any more morphine because I had the limit for this time period.

Having said that, the recovery was annoying for a couple weeks (especially chomping down all the time on cotton wads for the first couple says) and didn't completely vanish for perhaps two months (not painful, just noticeable).

But get it done anyway. It is worth it and the longer you let it go the more painful it's going to be in the long run.

[KCDem]

33. 4 impacted--didn't bother me at all

I looked like a chipmunk for about a week, though.

[PVnRT]

34. A lot, but the drugs are gooooooooooooooooooood

Goooooooooooooooooooood drugs...

[Cheswick2.0]

35. I was awake and it was not bad at all

I don't see what the big deal is honestly.

on edit: Afterwards they gave me Naproxen sodium (I have no idea how to spell that)and it worked fine. Of course during the procedure they used that stuff that numbs your whole face and makes you drool

[Lydia Leftcoast]

36. The older you are, the harder it is

I was in my late thirties. They gave me a drip sedative, and I remember only feeling a tug as they pulled each tooth. It felt as if I had been out for fifteen minutes, but it was actually more than an hour.

The bad part came later. I got an infection, plus I couldn't open my mouth all the way for nearly two weeks, so I had to live on liquids. I made soups and pureed them in the blender, followed by fruit/yogurt shakes. When I went to a friend's birthday party, I had to skip the cake and just eat the ice cream.

In addition, some of the anesthesia in my lips took over a week to wear off.

The first time I went out shopping, I noticed people staring at me. It was only when I got into the car and looked in the rearview mirror that I notced the bruises around my mouth and cheeks. People probably thought I was a battered woman or something.

My first solid food after the oral surgeon gave the okay was French fries. I couldn't open my mouth any wider than that.

On the other hand, several of my students had their wisdom teeth out over the years, and they tended to be just fine in three days. My Japanese assistant, who it done at 28, took about a week.

All in all, I hope you're young and don't get any infections.

[Pithlet]

38. Uh oh

I was 16 when I had the bottoms out.

I'm 31 now, and I just assumed it would be like it was before.

[davidinalameda]

37. had them taken out when I was about 17

one at a time-the last one was a bitch

my two older sisters had them all done at once--faces swelled and they were in PAIN!

[NightTrain]

39. Got mine yanked out in Navy boot camp by a dentist-in-training.

He pulled them out with a pair of fucking pliers! I was put on bed rest for the next two days, during which time my jaw was so sore I didn't even think about eating.

With any luck, though, your experience won't require you to be a goddamned guinea pig, as mine did.

[earthman dave]

40. Not at all.

(In england) they just give you a local anaesthetic and get the pliers out, it feels kinda wierd but it doesn't hurt, you then need to rinse your mouth with salt water frequently for a day or two.

On edit: looking at all the other posts, I guess it depends on what exactly is wrong with them. Ouch.

[IronLionZion]

41. you'll be in a world of pain for a few days

but later you'll be glad you did it.

[MercutioATC]

42. Mine came in straight, but one cracked about 3 years ago.

I had to have it pulled. The dentist sent me to an orthodontist who numbed me....and numbed me...and numbed me (I'm resistant to drugs, but we won't explore that right now).

After about an hour, I was NUMB. A truck could have hit my face and I wouldn't have felt it.

To make a long story short, the orthodontist grabbed a spiky-looking thing and said "You may hear a sound. Don't be alarmed". I felt him put pressure on my chest, felt my head move back and forth while he broke the tooth, and HEARD it come out.

Now that I've creeped you out, there was no pain and I healed in about a week and a half with no complications :)