My wisdom tooth extraction

So here I am blogging to take my mind off things.. Off all the bullshit rackety batshit crazy heart-twisting mind-boggling matters lately.

For the record, this is my second wisdom tooth extraction. I did my first one (extracted my lower left wisdom tooth) on the 23rd of December last year. The previous dentist I had, recommended me to not remove both my lower wisdom tooth at once because I would have extreme difficulty eating. I was so glad that I listened to him. I can still remember the vast amount of blood that I was constantly spitting into the sink, into the toilet bowl, into pieces of tissue papers and the surprising amount of blood-soaked gauze that I was constantly pulling out of my mouth to switch to a new one. Oh! Not forgetting the large amount of my own blood that I drank. Yuck! Felt like a freaking vampire that day.

Anyway, this second dental surgery which I had was much better than my first one. Prolly because I had prior experience already and this dentist gave me a better set of advice and protocols to follow.


So here I am with the anesthetic already injected into my mouth.


Umm.. if you would like to know, I whimpered softly a couple of times when the dentist poked the metal syringe into my gum and the area surrounding my right wisdom tooth. I couldn't wait to get done with all the freaking poking and that sensation of an unknown foreign liquid entering my system. It felt really really strange.

I had local anaesthesia.

The difference between local anaesthesia and general anaesthesia is that the former rids you of any possible sensations (not inclusive of hard physical pressure) whereas the latter knocks you out and has you sleeping like a baby. So yes, I knew what was going on throughout my entire surgery. Including one of the parts when my dentist cracked my tooth and a small bit of it flew out of my mouth and landed on my right elbow. I will leave the details about this for later, eh?


Here is the x-ray of my mouth. The tooth circled in red is my right wisdom tooth. The photo is mirrored-image, which explains why you see my right tooth on your left instead of your right.

See how my tooth is "collapsed"? It was growing sideways instead of upright, which explains why I always get food lodged at the back of the right side of my mouth, and I freaking hate it when food gets stuck there. Hard to get out and incredibly uncomfortable.

So, I had my dental surgery to extract out the wisdom tooth. As my tooth wasn't growing upright, it was actually hidden beneath my gum, therefore the dentist had to do a little "trimming" to clear away the gum that was obscuring the path of the surgery from going smoothly, and then he had to (for the lack of a better word) saw my tooth to remove the upper half that was more exposed to the surface, then use this chisel-like tool which was pointed at the tip (kinda like a really sharp pencil but it is made of metal) to crack the lower half of my tooth into really really small bits. Kinda like this...


Yeap! That's my tooth!!
My dentist then stitched up the opening gap which was where my right wisdom tooth was located at formerly.


Photo taken after the swelling had gone down and I was capable of widening my mouth.

He prescribed me with some painkillers, anti-swelling medicine, mouthwash and anti-biotics.
The reason for anti-biotics is because during the recovery period, you are not allowed to brush the teeth in the surgical area. (The only thing that you can do is to rinse that area with the mouthwash as prescribed by the dentist) And also, our mouth is filled with lots of bacteria and nasty germs, thus it might possibly cause the surgical wound to be infected, hence the prescription of the anti-biotics to kill the bacteria and germs!

Sidenote: I bloody hate this anti-biotics. It made me FAT. I swear that it is the anti-biotics. Or maybe the painkiller. Either one of these darn medicine is causing me to gain weight. I've put on 3kgs ever since I took the medication. Imagine my horror when I stepped onto the weighing scale in my room and saw those digits jumping up in glee. I stared at the numbers in disbelief. Retook my weight about 3 times before the truth finally sunk in. Sigh. Not cool yo. NOT COOL

The dentist gave me specific instructions to not rinse my mouth with water for the first day because it would cause more bleeding. (That explains why I was bleeding so much during my first dental surgery because that dentist did not tell me that and I kept running in and out of my toilet every 5-10 mins to take out the bloody gauze from my mouth, rinse away the blood that seemed as though it wouldn't staunch and then put in a fresh piece of gauze, only to repeat the whole procedure again very soon.)



I was kiasu and asked for more gauze because my previous dentist prescribed me a huge pack of gauze (like those paper-wrapped packs available in the pharmacy, with at least 50-100gauze per pack) whereas the receptionist at the front of this dental clinic only gave me a few measly pieces of gauze.
Truth be told, I didn't even finish using the gauze in ONE of these packs. Ha! Awesome dentist gives awesome instructions = less bleeding for me!

My mom bought lots of yoghurt - peach flavoured, banana flavoured + bits of pear crunch, aloe vera, nata de coco, prune... to help ease the pain.


Banana flavoured yoghurt with bits of pear crunch in it! Yums!

I had to use the spoon that I used when I was a baby, to eat because my mouth could only open "so wide" for the first two days. Ate in much much smaller portions which resulted in my eating time being extended more than it had ever been. I even got so tired of eating so slow that I simply stopped eating and concluded that I was done with my meal.

So yeap! That's it for my recap of my wisdom tooth extraction.

Hope I didn't scare the shit crap out of you peeps till you dare not get yours extracted! (Ha, I have a feeling that I might have for some of you!)

Lucky you though if you've already extracted yours! I hope my upper wisdom tooth don't give me any problems so I wouldn't have to get rid of it and it can stay with me till I grow old and die. Yay!

I still owe an entry on my trip to MEMA. Soon yeah? (: