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Originally Posted by Bam You Have AIDS
I had this done last year, and it's not as big a deal as I think it's made out to be. You don't need intravenous anesthetics, you don't need the knock out pills, and you don't need much for painkillers afterwards.
I did cough up the extra money for the nitrous oxide, which was great. They pulled one tooth cleanly, cut one out, and broke + extracted one more. I had a sinus perforation (meaning they broke a hole into my sinus cavity through my upper wisdom) and wasn't allowed to sneeze for about a week and a half.
Afterwards, I ate soft foods like applesauce, soup (nothing with chunks or bits in it), pudding, etc. But the real lifesaver was the meal-replacement protein drinks I grabbed. Get some of those for the first week or so. They're awesome.
The biggest pain is trying to keep bits of food out of the holes in your mouth. Make sure to do a gentle salt rinse after everything you eat. It will take about a month/month and a half for these to close over, but you should be able to do solid food after about a week and a half.
White tissue in the holes and mild itching sensation are good. Means you're healing. If something tastes like a dead animal in there and the extraction site appears some horrific colour, see your dentist again and they'll A) rinse out the hole and B) put you on antibiotics to prevent infection.
It's a lot of maintenance, but it's not a terrifying experience and I think it's made to sound a lot worse to people so they'll fork out the money for anesthetic.  |
Eh I don't compleeeeetely agree about the pain meds. I don't know if taking Advil would have fixed everything but the migraine I was beginning to get from the pain would have rendered me immobile and I was not having that. Once the numbness wore off, I was in pretty bad pain.
But yeah, it was definitely not as big of a deal as I thought it was going to be. This was my first surgery or anything big and I'm also deathly afraid of needles, which made me have anxiety about it from the moment I made the appointment two weeks prior.
Thanks for the advice about foods.
I've actually pretty much just been mushing everything up.
Eating ice cream and mushed bananas and ****.
Can't wait to eat normal again, though!