Before The Surgery

Wisdom teeth can be troublesome. The wisdom teeth are also common called as the third molars.

They usually do not replace any baby teeth and grow after the second molars. The wisdom teeth come at age 15-30. Occasionally they may erupt later, or being impacted, meaning they are formed but cannot erupt due to not enough space in the jaw.

I got my wisdom teeth just newly removed since they tend to become problematic. The wisdom teeth are well known for growing in strange position, either toward the next teeth or away from the next teeth, inward or outward. In my case they were all under surface. My dentist recognized the problem and sent me to the oral surgeon. After seeing the x-ray we decided to extract all the wisdom teeth, with exception of the one at upper right. The reason is that the position of my upper right second molar was going outward and the surgeon had too less sight and too less space to remove it. Actually he ought to remove all five: all wisdom teeth, plus my upper right second molar. For all other wisdom teeth, sure I would let them out. But for the upper right side, I don’t feel like I would sacrifice both of my second molar and third molar, if I can save/ have one of them use properly in the future. So I let the upper-right second molar (medically called the 17) pulled, and hope that the upper right wisdom tooth will grow replacing it.

Make sure you had enough time to consult with your dentist and surgeon. Normally they would make an X-Ray to have a picture of the impacted teeth.

The Surgical Removal of Wisdom Teeth

The operation itself took about 30min. The surgeon was extremely fast.

Arrived 10minutes earlier before the appointed time of surgery, I got pretty nervous but luckily they –at the oral surgeon didn’t let me wait to long. Being placed at surgical bed, after a short talk with the surgeon, I immediately got local anesthesia at targeted areas. (I like it that in Germany everything goes pretty much fast and on time). Were some injections on inner and outer side of the surrounding targeted areas. The anesthesia was strong enough to make numb the surgical area in about 10-15minutes. Partially tongue, chin and lips were also affected. It felt and sounded very silly when I was trying to talk to the nurse. Of course all nerves there were on way to become numb, so it is normal to feel paralyzed while trying to talk.

The right side went pretty fast and without pain. I closed my eyes for the first five minutes because i simply just cant watch all of those instruments the dentist was using.  I was somewhat tensed despite of another anesthesia running through my right arm. It started with my right bottom (Op 48) I can feel the first cut at the side of right bottom second molar, imagined how I bleed and felt how the teeth got extracted. Then got some stitches. The surgeon moved on to my upper right second molar (Ex 17). Very fast. Less than 2 minutes. Only one small stitch.

Afterwards it was somewhat horror. Was a bit problematic with the left bottom wisdom tooth (Op 38), lots of bleeding, and also the surgeon had to cut my teeth into several pieces. I supposed he cut it into 4 pieces to make it easier to pull. I felt as if my jaw was going to break. After what felt like an eternity, left bottom tooth was finally taken out. The next and last operation: last tooth (Op 28) was a piece of cake in comparison. Operation successful! Finito! Don’t ask me how many stitches I got all together, I didn’t count, and still cannot count now.

After the Surgery

At the end, my surgeon gave me a gauze pad at both sides to be bitten to press bleeding at extraction site. I was allowed to lie down in a comfort room for a while until I can sit down in waiting room.
It was not necessary to stay too long there. Apparently the time I used to relax (phew, the surgery is done!) was long enough for the surgeon to remove another pair of wisdom teeth, namely the ones from my husband. It was not until 5 minutes sitting in the waiting room when my husband came out after his surgery. It is suggested that you get picked up due to the effect of anesthesia. My husband was stubborn enough to drive though, and however he got less anesthesia since he got “only” two teeth pulled on his left side.

We got the “home instruction” from our surgeon about what to do during the next days. (silly me, didn’t find time to research on the issue prior to surgery, I think a part of my unconscious didn’t want to know too much in order to block the scary horrible thoughts).

At home, it was not funny at that time (but looking back to that time it sounds funny now), we cannot speak of course. It is recommonded as well to speak as less as you can. So we communicate by hand and foot, and when sometimes it became more complicated we use writing.

Within the next 2-3 hours, the pain was increasing. I wondered and cursed around why we didn't get any painkillers. We didn't ask either. With the pain you definitely do not want to open your mouth to speak, let alone going to farmacy to pick up painkillers. So the pain grew and grew. To certain point, I guess it was the peak, my eyes teared and it felt like an eternity foltery. So keep speaking nothing, we just laid on bed and wished to fall asleep.

We survived. The peak of pain subsided. Bleeding had stopped as well.

The next problem: getting hungry, I drank water only. Even to drink water, certain muscle is needed and this was apperantly also in pain. What a perfect day! At around 9p.m, after 12 hours of fasting and enduring pain, there was a signal from stomach to get food. Food, not only water. We were not so well prepared. There was nothing except potatoes smash that I thought suitable. Eating one small bowl of potatoes took me about 30minutes since I cannot open my jaws, cannot chew, and do not want to make the surgical area unclean. The food had to go through the middle of mouth, direct to tounge, and direct to throat, no chewing.

The next problem came before bed: brushing teeth. Oooohhh I cannot even imagine to open my jaws, so how can I possibly brush my teeth. I brushed my front teeth only, clean out the rest with cotton buds and rinse mouth very slowly with water.

Day one survived. I took a long deep breath.

Day2 to Day 4 were similar, except that I started bleeding in small amount again but it kept me worried. My cheeks were huge as well as if I had a small tennis-table balls on each inside. On day 4 i let the surgeon checked it up. It was still normal he said. I had to bite down a rolled gauze pad again on both side. The blood didnt taste good. I used tea bags afterwards and it neutralized the blood taste and bad odor causing by it. On day 5 I had no more bleeding.

Later on after all the constant pain and bleeding was gone, I looked at my shelf and spotted there were painkillers. I bursted in laugh, how can I forgot it. Yeah sure, the surgeon gave us already a prescription of antibiotics and painkillers, as we met him two weeks prior to surgery. I had bought them immediately afterwards and totally forgotten about it. ha ha ha. that was a good reason to laugh. At least I know that the pain was still bearable even without painkillers. Even my husband claimed that it was pretty heavy pain for him, and I had more or less double of that pain. He argued it could had been the same pain level, because his 2 extracted teeth were bigger and had deeper roots than mine. We never know)

In about a week the surgeon removed the stitches (unless if he had use absorbable ones). This is less painful and very quick procedure. After that all was improving better and better.

My cheeks were still somewhat swollen eventhough they were not as big as on day 2-day 4. Because of relatively small face it looked obviously swallowed. My husband called me "chipmunk lady" on those days. At about two weeks I stil had small blue-green bruises on my left cheek, which remained until about week 3.

I am glad it is over now and I can eat normal after again.

Thank you for reading. I would be happy to receive a comment or feedback about this article.