Not quite perfect

[mrissa]

The dentist kept crowing, "Perfect teeth! Such perfect teeth!" But in fact they are not quite perfect: two of the wisdom teeth need to leave my mouth. An you love me, please do not share your wisdom tooth extraction horror stories with me. I already know plenty upon plenty of them. We don't have it scheduled yet, but that's on the list, oh joy and bliss. Make reassuring noises like "it'll all be over before you know it" if you must. I don't need the "seven weeks of total agony!" stuff.

The hygienist was at Kato State when the tornado hit St. Pete, so we talked about tornado memories when I could talk at all. I got her talking about her dog with her fingers in my molars, so that was just fine. ("Why should I talk about my cats when I'm in the shower? Am I afraid of my cats?")

I have no idea what's for dinner tonight, or what I'm going to manage to get done at this stage of weariness. I don't think "curl up with The Ionian Mission and stare off into space" is a reasonable agenda for the rest of the day, but maybe for awhile, at least....

Comments

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

How about a wisdom tooth extraction NOT horror story?

Had all 4 done at once, really didn't hurt that bad afterwards, and apparently I was a great amusement to all those around me when I was coming out of the anesthetic. Healed quickly and without complications, and really just slept for a day or so and then took it easy for another day or two.

I will never understand why people like to scare their friends. We shall all keep good thoughts for you when you schedule the surgery and you will heal in the warmth of good vibes from all and sundry.

So sayeth I.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Not horror stories are good. We like not horror stories.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Not-a-horror-story:

I only had two out, but it was totally pain free. I had painkillers and sat on the couch for a few days eating soup, happy as a soup-eating clam.

I was also apparently entertaining coming out of the anaesthetic.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Given how strongly I react to drugs, I suspect I will be entertaining as well.

I like soup.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

A few years ago I had eight at once (wisdoms and bicuspids, to get ready for my braces). And it was nothing. I slept for an afternoon (and Little Miss H was six months old and not sleeping through the night yet, so an afternoon of nothing but sleep was reeeeeeally good medicine in so many ways) and when I woke up that evening I was fine. Didn't need tylenol or anything that night, or the next day, or anything.

In short: you'll be fine. You'll get a good nap for a day or so.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I'm glad your teeth were generally perfect! My wisdom teeth came out neither horrifically nor blithely, so, hope that counts as not-horror.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Oh, curling up with _The Ionian Mission_ is well enough. But you probably shouldn't curl up with _The Far Side of the World_ when you're anxious about your teeth. It turns out that Stephen, while supremely confident of certain of his skills, feels the need of an assistant who can handle the tooth-drawing side of his business. In very, very, brief...it does not go well.

I'm confident your wisdom tooth extraction will go just fine. All you really need to know is find a dentist you can trust, ice your jaw as soon as possible afterwards, and avoid hot drinks until the stitches come out.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I will remember this later, when my head actually does hurt.

[palinade.livejournal.com]

I had impacted teeth, so surgery was performed for both upper and lower. I healed quicky from both--faster after the uppers were removed.

And I ought to see a dentist, too, for general cleaning and checkup.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Mine was a piece of cake. One day eating soup, and I was fine the next day. :-)

[jenett]

Another not-horror story.

Had all four of mine out at once, when in college, under mild anesthesia (I think oxygen and a valium IV. I don't remember anything about it from when they put it in to when I woke up, and woke up pretty clear headed with no after effects).

The actual removal was *way* more painless than I'd been led to believe. I only took painkillers for less than a day (tylenol 3 with codeine).

The one piece of advice was I had them out on Thursday before going up to Vermont for a week on Saturday, where we were mostly eating out in restaurants, since we were on vacation. That was a poor choice of timing, because I kept biting on things and going "Ow!" a whole lot for a few days (and then it gradually got better: by the end of that week, I was fine. If I'd been home with better control over my food choices, I think I would have been fine in about 2 days.)

[zellandyne.livejournal.com]

My wisdom teeth removal was really easy, too. I'll ditto on the ice-packs. I used mine so regularly that my swelling came down significantly before my orthodontist had predicted. I also got my wisdoms out one week before I had to leave the country for four months abroad, and I was in great shape by the time I got on the plane.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

This is a !wisdom_tooth_horror_story.

When I had my wisdom teeth out (all four at once, because it simply struck me as more efficient), I spent about a half a day sleeping hard and was eating real food again four or five days after having my teeth out.

My sister, who had hers out in ones and twos at a time, kept going to dance classes immediately (literally) after having her teeth out. So fear not! There need not be seven weeks of agony! All will be well! :)

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

No horror other than a false memory of someone else's fishing trip caused I think by the dentist discussing his fishing trip at length while he did my teeth with me in twilight sleep.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

You could always think of this as practice for pregnancy. For some reason, those seem to to be the two things which, when you embark on them, cause other people to bring out horror stories that can't possibly be of any help.

For the record, I think I was back in classes a couple of days after having my teeth out. Annoying aches, but not excruciating pain and not a huge amount of swelling. The most annoying side effect, and I think this is probably not typical, was that I couldn't open my mouth really, really wide for months after (I could eat a banana but nothing larger - but I have a small mouth to begin with) which was only a problem at the dentist's and in performing certain other activities I won't detail.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you, Paula, nobody needs to hear in great detail about how hard it was to sing properly.

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Damn, I'm glad I didn't know that might have been a possibility when they took mine out. ;-D

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Forgot to mentin the *worst* thing about getting my wisdom teeth out: the repetitive conversation I kept having to have with my dad that went,

"So you're only getting three out? Why don't they take them all while they're in there?"
"Uh, because I only *have* three wisdom teeth, Dad."
"Yeah, that's what I mean. So why don't they get the fourth one while they've got you knocked out?"
"Because there are only three wisdom teeth growing in my mouth."
"So why..."

Rinse, repeat, try not to damage wall while banging head on it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh dear.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Actually, there's good reason for the pregnancy thing. For one thing, childbirth is pretty much always Worse than one expects. It's really quite intense and it is NOT FAIR to let a woman go into it with anything less than totally realistic expectations. Second, it's a rite of passage, the only one we women get to celebrate in our culture. The hazing is our right as women who have been through it already. And number three: pretty much the only time women talk about their labors is at baby showers or other occasions when pregnant women are present. Being hushed up because you had a less than ideal experience is really hurtful. I mean, hey, I'm sorry if you lose a couple precious hours of sleep imagining what I went through, but, believe me, twinkletoes, it's nuthin' compared to the sleep *I* lost.

Sorry, touchy subject, there...I really think my experience was worse for people having spared me the "horror stories." I went through it with a sense of unreality. A "you're kidding this can't possibly be happening," and a "Why doesn't someone do something already?" Then, afterward, nurses start telling me, "Oh, this happens all the time." WHAT?!? Why didn't anyone tell me? So, that's my mission. I'm here to tell you that you can labor for three fucking days. It happens all the time. ;-)

Now, wisdom teeth, there's really not much use in dwelling on other people's bizarre complications, IMHO.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think what I would want is an accurate assessment of risk. That doesn't mean "hushing up" people who had bad experiences. On the other hand, I know young women who have been regaled with only the horror stories, to the point where they see childbirth as a universally horrific experience and have no idea how humanity made it into the 20th century without going extinct. I think that having people spend 9 months (or more) in a state of total panic and go into their deliveries convinced that both they and the baby are statistically likely to die is demonstrably harmful, too.

It is not my experience that women only talk about their labors when pregnant women are present. My relatives talk about them often, and I know other people's do, too. My relatives mostly have painful but brief and uncomplicated experiences, but I know people who have honestly considered not having children not because they don't want them but because it has been portrayed to them as just too dangerous from the time they were barely pubescent.

So yes, I can see where your experience from both directions (not being informed and not being allowed to inform others) is harmful and not the way to go. But I think that doing one's best to convince pregnant women that nothing can possibly go right is harmful, too. There has to be a middle-ground. Reasonable assessment of probabilities and possibilities seems like the goal.

(Incidentally, I know it's hard to stay civil when something hits that close to the bone on that important a topic, but if you could refrain from using sarcastic nicknames for other posters on my lj, I would really appreciate it.)

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Mris--I didn't mean to refer to anyone *here* as twinkletoes, since we are not actually talking about or to any pregnant women that I know of I thought it was clear that my twinkletoes was a hypothetical person. But honestly, truly, I have had the experience of being AT a baby shower and walking INTO the room, having said NOTHING and having people YELL at me to SHUT UP and not scare the precious expectant mother. Really! While I'm standing there with a mouthful of cake and going "What?" (And this is not because I am a notorious teller of gory stories. I'm quite often pretty quiet in groups.) If the expecting mom had said to me, "You know, I've heard a lot of bad stories, and I feel really anxious right now," I'd be happy to share the more positive bits. (There are always positive bits.) But when I'm not allowed to say anything, it really does get hurtful, and I do think there's a bit of that happening with all sorts of pain and tragedy that people have. Others don't even want to *hear* about it. Please, don't bring everyone down by telling us how your wife and children died in a car wreck! And particularly since I learned that the experience I had is really pretty common and since it can be mitigated by being prepared, I really feel that pregnant women should know these things. It's the sort of stuff that was also left out of my happy, cheery, positive childbirth preparation class.

In sum, I would say it is probably rude and insensitive to regale an expectant mother *overmuch* with the horrors of childbirth, but it is ruder and more insensitive as a third party to tell someone else what they can and cannot say in front of a pregnant woman. They are, after all, grownups, and are totally able to say something like, "Oh dear, my blood pressure is rising. Can we change the subject to something more pleasant?" This is a different phenomenon altogether from someplace like lj, where you can open a discussion on a specific topic and state your own rules. Would it make much sense for someone *other* than Mrissa to come here to this topic and arbitrarily state that Mris is not allowed to hear any negative experiences having to do with wisdom teeth? Is not that the perogative of Mris herself? One that she exercised capably? So, too, I think with childbirth. Let the girl decide what she wants to hear.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I agree: preemptive hushing is rude and horrible, and a certain part of the function of a community is to support people in the less-than-perky parts of their lives.

[seimaisin.livejournal.com]

I have another not!horror story - got all four of my (impacted) teeth out last summer. A bit of pain, but nothing the nifty Vicodin prescription couldn't tame. A bit fuzzy for a week, but I could do my job, and was pleased to encounter a friend a week later who looked at me and said, with great shock, "oh my god, you have NO swelling at all!" So, all in all, not a terrible thing.

[jenfullmoon.livejournal.com]

I didn't even need the ever-pimped Vicodin. (Which was a good thing, considering I told the dentist I couldn't swallow pills multiple times and I still got prescribed them anyway.) It really didn't hurt, just felt funny.

[fiddledragon]

Actually - in my case it *was* over before I knew it :)

The pain afterwards, well...I think it goes without saying - particularly since > 21 seems to be "over the hill" when it comes to these sorts of things. As much as I dislike medication, T3 was my friend, as well as going in for clove packing. It kept everything to a minimum, and all told, despite my age at the time of the procedure (30), it wasn't all that bad :)

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

*grins*

*wisdom toothily*

Take good notes for me? :D

[(Anonymous)]

Well, M'ris, I still have mine, but David had his out about two years ago and didn't have any real problems. He was groggy coming out of anesthesia and had a little bit of a sore mouth for the next day or two, but he got to eat ice cream (the surgeon even provided him with a carton) and sleep for a while, so not too bad. Good luck.

Heathah

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

Hi, sweetie. I'm sorry to here you have to go under the knife. Total unconsciousness, that's the way to go.

I recovered pretty quickly from mine. Druuuugs.

Love,
me

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Is there a reason we're having this conversation in public rather than on e-mail?

Love,
me

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

'cause your email to me about it got filed in the spam folder? Dunno what's up with that.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Strange indeed. I didn't even ask anything about the mortgage or breast size.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

I had all four done about a year and a half ago (I had room for them in my mouth, but couldn't brush behind them, and they were getting cavity-ridden). They came out like a dream, I never experienced much pain at all, and it took me a long time to get used to my mouth feeling like it ended too soon. And the drugs were fun.

[kfitzwarin.livejournal.com]

I had three done at once (apparently the 4th didn't exist). I got home around mid-morning with a stack of cheesy novels from the library (cheesy since I knew I wouldn't remember much of them anyway - I think I cranked through about a half-dozen Regency romances and that many again of the Ian Fleming Bond stories). I ate gently - instant mashed potatoes, frozen fruit bars, soup, and was fine 24 hours or so later. Not to worry.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Oops. My comment below was supposed to be a reply to this one.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Are you *sure* you're not me? This gets weirder and weirder.... (See story about my Dad in comment above.)

[kfitzwarin.livejournal.com]

Hm. One wonders....

[matastas.livejournal.com]

I can't exactly share a horror story. Mine were impacted. They gave me Valium beforehand. They put Darvocet in my veins during. They gave me Lorecet after.

You could have cut off my arm with a chainsaw, and I wouldn't have given a damn. Drugs make the experience.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

See, and I react rather strongly to drugs, so that's something of a worry in itself.

[matastas.livejournal.com]

Now that I'm sober.

For me, it wasn't bad at all. Impacted (haven't broken skin) wisdom teeth are easy to remove: they drugged me up, cut 'em out, sent me home. I spent a day sleeping off the Darvocet (it had a light-switch effect when they gave it to me) and eating ice cream and Sprite. Could have easily gone to school the next day. Took a grand total of one pain pill. Biggest problem with it for me is I couldn't feel the lower half of my face, which made eating a bit of a challenge.

You might consult others for the non-impacted (broken skin) wisdom-tooth experience, as I'm told it can be much different.

[talimena.livejournal.com]

I had all four of mine removed and it was quick and easy and surprisingly (to me) unpainful after. I hope yours are taken at least as smoothly.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I had all four removed at once, they were all horribly impacted, and the worst of it coming out was very persistent hiccups. For about half an hour. Hard ones, like Mike got (and presumably gets). So, no big deal, is what I'm saying. Oh, and funny bruises. Not painful bruises, just funny lookin'.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I had two removed under an anaesthetic that knocked me out (knowing, as I did, that my own anxiety would only have made things worse) and it was over before I knew it. Not especially painful afterward, either.

[gaaldine.livejournal.com]

No problems here, either. I even went and had my bridesmaid's dress for Marnie's wedding altered after I was done. The only inconvenience of the whole was trying to talk to my grandmother about altering the dress with a wad of cotton in my mouth.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

My co-worker just had all four of hers pulled. She said that with the medication they gave her for after she had "mild discomfort" but not pain- mostly a sore jaw from holding it open for so long.

And she's really a sissy about such things.

It's all in the dentist, I think. A good one can reduce the pain to insignificant amounts.