the perc is just starting to kick in
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.
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.
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.
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.
I had a fantastic time getting mine taken out. A case of red wine and a bottle of Percodan. Percocet is for sissies :D
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.
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.
It's how many toes you have that we are worried about, Wolf :D
I'm not sure. I keep getting distracted and losing count. I think I have all of 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :headshake 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.
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.
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.
That's why I never took LSD either, spent to much time watching my roommate on it, pacing around the room talking to herself :D
The ugly part of Demerol is feeling like you are not part of what is going on and that, whatever it is, it is not going right. There is a growing conviction that something is terribly wrong with you and you will not get better. If the drug works by blocking certain parts of your brain to prevent sensation of pain, maybe in the process it also blocks some links to the reasoning centers. At least they immediately switched you to the perc and you did not have to stay on a drip with Demerol for a few days, that's when it starts getting really acute. At least I know now that it was not just an allergic reaction on my part, I've heard stories from 2 other people who experienced the same effects.
wtf are you talking about? yeesh. wisdom teeth, not heroin addiction.
The really, really good shit they give you is the Versed. If you have a good and understanding anesthesiologist, they'll push it REAL slow.
Like being surrounded by nice warm waves of happy.
Now, if only I had been in the position to enjoy the post op morphine ...
Exactly. Pain medication should not make you feel like the down side of something so nasty that you would have never taken it anyway.
Three cheers for Versed, I've had it twice now and it is just about perfect. You don't get spaced out and afterwards it just wears off and you don't even realize it because you are perfectly normal. The only side effect I had was looking up and realizing I could read the charts all the way across the operating room without my glasses! That could mean my eyes were crossed :blush:
I had to get all 4 out in the Mid 1990s with no insurance and little income. So I joined a U Texas pain medication study as a guinea pig. There were about 10 of us cranked through the chair with in a few hours. I wasnt totally out, and my lowers caused some struggle, leaving big torn hollows. I recall the presure and the popping, not unlike uprooting an old stump. I then had to go to the recovery room for a couple hours, with the other subjects and try the pain meds. We didnt know if we got the real shit or the sugar. We had to fill out pain charts every 15 minutes. If after 1 hour we were in pain we could request the real shit. I went for the sure thing as soon as I was greenlighted. Few days of looking like Ted Kennedy, and I was fine.
Drugs don't kill people. People kill people. For the record, Demerol is synthetic morphine but I prefer it to the real stuff. Less burning when it goes intravenous. Percocets are wonderful drugs, as are vicodin--if you can get something more than the lame 5mg hydrocodone/500mg tylenol set up. I like the 7.5/500 or the 10/500. Now you're getting somewhere. Nitrous oxide is hippie crack. I've witnessed the phenom at many a Dead show. Amazing stuff. Of course, we never indulged ourselves. :D
Few days of looking like Ted Kennedy...
:lol2:
I’ve told this before so, if you heard it...take five.
The night before my first wedding, staying at the Best Man’s house miles from my normal haunts, I swallowed the cap to my front tooth. Asked the hospital for help and they said “wait for it”. You can fill in the methodology. :o
So the Best Man’s wife, who is about 10 months pregnant, takes me to their dentist, after arranging for an emergency cap job.
Sit chatting in the crowded waiting room until the nurse comes out and says “Will the young man that’s getting married today please come in”.
Much murmuring and glancing at Ms Very Pregnant and myself.
Anyway, I went back to this dentist for a permanent cap and he told me I had 3 teeth that needed to come out. I was well aware of that as I’d had a constant battle with my teeth but finances were scarce, so I ignored them as much as possible.
He said he could put me in the hospital and blue cross/blue shield would cover.
Dentistry for nothin’ and care for free...sign me up, Doc. :thumbsup:
What he didn’t tell me is BC/BS covered if there were a minimum of 7 teeth to be extracted.
Woke up in the recovery room with a mouth full of stitches and a huge hangover. Seems the wisdom teeth weren’t ready and he had to excavate and blast. Stitches leave odd dangly bits sticking out and every damn one is connected to a major nerve. They gave me pain pills of some sort (one day supply) then aspirin and tough it out.
Last year when I dislocated my shoulder they gave me 40 oxycodone/apap 5mg-325mg which worked quite well. I’ve got 23 left.
Drugs don't kill people. People kill people. For the record, Demerol is synthetic morphine but I prefer it to the real stuff. Less burning when it goes intravenous. Percocets are wonderful drugs, as are vicodin--if you can get something more than the lame 5mg hydrocodone/500mg tylenol set up. I like the 7.5/500 or the 10/500. Now you're getting somewhere. Nitrous oxide is hippie crack. I've witnessed the phenom at many a Dead show. Amazing stuff. Of course, we never indulged ourselves. :D
It kind of frightens me when people know too much about prescription drugs, or drugs in general. I mean, I know a fair amount about mary jane, but that's pretty mild, and it's mostly because I have a farmer friend who loves to talk about his pot crops (doesn't grow anymore, though). When it comes to other stuff, though ... well, I'm sure if I spent time in the trenches, I'd figure it all out.
But it's just downright scary to hear people rattle off drug composition and dosages. I guess if you're going to ingest it, you might as well get familiar with it, but it edges on a certain threshold that I'm not willing to cross.
That didn't make much sense. I'm really tired tonight.
It's a hazard of the medical profession to know all the details. ;)
I’ve got 23 left.
Party at bruce's!!
(Inevitable disclaimer: this comment was posted for humorous effect. I would never advocate taking medications not prescribed for you by a physician.)
It kind of frightens me when people know too much about prescription drugs, or drugs in general.
Settle down. Bri's a nurse.
wisdom teeth , hell dentestry in general .
I had my wisdom teeth taken out when i was stationed in IceLand , to be truethfull the Dentist cut out my molers and let the wisdom teeth grow in as they were in better shape than my molers . Now let me clearafy , dude did a nerve block on both sides ( you know when they push a LONG needle up in side of your cheek and they know they have hit the nerve when you flinch and a tear roll down your cheek ) , he used not those nice shiney new instruments but home made instruments and a scalple , as he had a conversation with a friend of his that was observing , he described EVERY GORY detail . I was FULLY awake but trying to block out the pulling and ( literly ) Mashing of my teeth( with a FUCKING HAMMER AND CHISEL!!!! ) . FuckStick didn't even give me any good pain meds , he said , and i quote " just take 2 extra srength tylenols and a bufferd asprin every 4 hours , if it hurts drink some luke warm coffie !!!!!!!"
Damn if that didn't work !!!
The next worse dental experence was in boot camp , i had to have a filling done , at the clinic on Paris Island they use rubber dams ( this is a sheet of rubber with special clips attached around the teeth that need work on to keep the debree from falling down your throut ) , FuckStick officer looks at the x-ray , comes in and shoots me up with novacane in the general area , attaches the clamps to the wrong tooth ( i am a recrute at this point , recutes DON'T correct superiors ) , installs the rubber dam , and starts drilling , on the WROND FUCKING TOOTH ( no novacane there !!!!!!!!!) ,
I knocked him ALL the way accross the dental clinic , he came back ashen faced asking what was wrong , I said as calmly as i could " Sir you are drilling on the wrong tooth ,SIR!! " . he looked at the x-ray again and looked at where he had installed all this dental hardware and said " Oh , I did miss it , didn't I ?" With a silly fucking grin on his face . He shot me up again and did the work right after that . Got to love those dentest trainees !!!!!! :rar:
It kind of frightens me when people know too much about prescription drugs, or drugs in general. ..... But it's just downright scary to hear people rattle off drug composition and dosages. I guess if you're going to ingest it, you might as well get familiar with it, but it edges on a certain threshold that I'm not willing to cross.
Yeah, you have a point there, but let me explain that learning about drugs was not my idea. I never enjoyed the feeling that I was not in control of my surroundings, so I was actually pretty straight all through college and many years of dating. I know some of the other gals here are in health care, but I got an education while spending the proverbial time wracked up in the trenches. The head of Pulmonary Medicine at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix did not have the brains to diagnose an embolism and I was finally wheeled into an emergency room with about 15 minutes left on my life clock when they got things flowing again and I could breathe. That was 15 year ago, and since they I've had to visit a lot of hospitals because if somebody is on a high dose of Coumadin, you even look at them and they start bleeding. Try having a piece of expandable plastic called a Rhyno shoved up your nose all the way to the cavity behind your eyes to stop a hemorrhage, think that don't hurt? Last summer I had a Right Heart Cath, I'm getting hardened so I watched the whole thing. I paid for it, might as well learn something while I am at it. To make a 15-year story short, I have to let doctors do all kinds of unpleasant things to me but I don't TRUST them anymore. It was a doctor who was "the best of the best" who put me here. So the minute anybody comes at me with a needle or some pills in their hand, they end up with their wrist grabbed and they don't get near me without a complete explanation of what it is and what it does and show me the entry on my paperwork. This is how I have prevented hospital staff and one doctor from giving me the wrong meds, unneeded meds, and once a DOUBLE injection of anticoagulants which would have killed me right there in that hospital bed. I've never taken any PAIN med for recreational purposes, but I was really popular for a while in a certain group of associates who found out that my medicine cabinet was filled with barely opened bottles of some pretty heavy stuff :D
Settle down. Bri's a nurse.
Arf. :3_eyes: :eek: