Ouch! Sympathies...

Ouch indeed. my last tooth i go out looked a lot easier than that. the noise is the worst bit.. i kept mine as well, discovered it in a pile of magazines the other day.

the best bit is the 3 weeks of swilling your mought out with salt water 3 times a day.

Three weeks of what? I had two teeth out a couple of years ago and my dentist didn't say anything about that... Sounds foul!

Warm salt water. one of life's cheapest remedies for sore gums and throats and if completely desperate, sinuses.

PS. My word verification for this post was 'yeuky' - seriously! :-)

Ooh, nice. I had two teeth out a couple of years ago (a week apart). The first one came out fine. The second one, not so fine... After much pulling and drilling to get purchase, it finally came out in three pieces.

Call me weird, but I actually kind of liked the numb feeling before the pain killers wore off...

The numb feeling isn't too bad but the paranoia that one is sitting there dribbling is not to be borne.

Lucky I'm not squeamish - I opened your blog with my mouth full of lunch! Hope it mends quickly.

That is absolutely disgusting.

Ugh!

I HATE having things done to my teeth.

I had a filling done about 6 months ago. And the dentist had promised me she would use "lots" of anaesthetic and make sure it wouldn't hurt. But when i turned up she used "no" anaesthetic.

I'll never believe a dentist ever again.

Holy Cow. I'm glad I had my wisdom teeth out under general anaesthetic in the good old days.
My Mum (she's a late developer) had a wisdom tooth out recently at the dentists and he had a similar struggle to yours. Our dentist is Polish (as in 'scale and Polish') and after hearing it would be a 2 year wait to have the hospital remove it he decided to have a second go and took it on as a personal challenge. He won in the end, but my Mum sure didn't feel like a winner afterwards. You certainly have her sympathies. Watch food doesn't get caught in the hole or you'll have real problems.

Jesus Christ, that's impressive.

I had a lot of work done a couple of years ago (not that you'd believe it, looking at me) which involved something similar, with a tooth so deeply embedded they were worried about breaking my jaw when it came out...

Many sympathies, and hope it heals up with no problems!

Mew! And I was trying to get up enough courage to go to the dentist!

We got odd looks for photographing our baby's placenta for our blog!

*dashes to bathroom*
*scrubs teeth frantically*

I think you should ask your mum how much she thinks you'll get from the tooth fairy for that bastard.

I had to have four perfectly healthy teeth ripped out in my late teens as apparently my mouth was too small for the full set of teeth. Then I spent up until I was nearly 21 with braces on my teeth to try and close the gaps. It took ages. The worst bit is trying not to keep investigating the gap with your tongue.

She probably thought you a little too old to put it under your pillow for the tooth fairy

Yikes! Reminds me of when I had my impacted wisdom teeth removed, with the odd perspective that lying back with your mouth wide open and seeing things close-to gives you I thought they trying to get a JCB in my mouth at one point. Hot salty water is the best thing to use - strangely soothing and antiseptic at the same time. Hope you feel better soon.

Yukkkkk, truly gross (this from a bloke who walked along a railway track a few weeks ago and didn't think twice about picking up the pt/vic's liver).

I have to be KO'd to have anything done to my teeth. Works well though as I have to have 48hrs off afterwards and the felling is soooooo trippy! Also have to have it done at a health centre by a consultant, which is free. :o) Being squeamish saves me a fortune.

BLOODY HELL!!!!!!

One of the Crew from your Station could have done a better job... and for less.

Better out than in :)

When I was about 8 or 9 I had a tooth out similar to that but it took a 1cm long section of jawbone with it. My dentist then went on to say how rare that was in kids and to explain about onion root teeth where pulling one out could pop out several others! This may be partly why I don't like dentists much.

One of the best things I have found for tooth ache is Oragel Plus. It is a local anaesthetic gel and works wonders. Clove oil works too but not as well.

Bonjela is nice too... and Boots do an okay own-brand one.

I used to adore tha aniseed flavoured bonjela... but at the time I was using it for my wisdom teeth, it was only advertised for baby teething pains, which was kind of embarrassing when the pharmacist asked me how old the baby was. I tried the Calgel too, but it wasn't as effective. The Oragel Plus is pretty much the strongest I've found, with the highest concentration of topical anaesthetic I've seen in an OTC product - great for those teeth that even the usual things won't stop hurting. But next time I'm in Boots, I'll have a look at their own-brand too.

Another good thing (though I see people not recommending it because it can irritate the gums/cheek) that sometimes works on more painful teeth is to dissolve a chewable Nurofen or aspirin next to the painful tooth. It works way better than taking it normally and waiting for it to get round your bloodstream.

That's grim but strangely fascinating. How long canyou go without playing with the hole in your gum?? I had a tooth out a few months ago the most painful bit was the dentist having to leaver it out as he kept pushing on my mouth! I keep finding myself playing with the hole now, especially when i find some food stuck in it!!!!

We've had this discussion already. I had 6 teeth out and looked like an Orc from LOTR for ages afterwards.

I had my wisdom teeth removed- in a hospital. Under a general. Thank GOD. I hated every minute of it and STILL cried like a baby. They must have battered my jaw because I seriously couldn't even open my mouth wide enough for a spoon. I was extremely confused at why my throat was so saw that I was convinced i'd swallowed razors. Ugh.

At least it was free I suppose. I only waited 18 months for it too.

Oh, and I just remembered my point:

I was given a mouthwash (I wsan't allowed to brush) to use for about a week or so.

It was called Corsodyl.

Probably anything that has Chlorhexidine in it would be good.

Not that I know anything- just what ive been told!

Good luck!

Chlorhexidine mouthwash *nods* good stuff that.

Had 4 wisdom teeth out under general a couple of months back - I'm not brave enough for my dentist to do it, had to go to hospital. It was dead easy - I'm one of them lucky beggars that comes out of a general feeling like I've had a good night's kip.

however if you use too much corsodyl, it can stain your teeth black..

I must have had the easiest wisdom tooth removal op ever - I had all four out at once in hospital, no real pain, only a little aching in the jaw from being opened wide, the stitches in my gums tickled (all four were impacted below the gumline) and that was it. I was eating within 2 hours of waking up from the anaesthetic and I had no bruising, no swelling, no nothing. I did have to wait 3.5 years on the urgent list to get them out, though.

On the other hand, my experiences with dentists have been pretty much nightmarish - either not enough anaesthetic, too much (so I couldn't swallow) or simply mangling my teeth so badly that I ended up having to have them pulled after the moron filled two teeth next to each other and just smeared the filling material between the two teeth as one. I also grind my teeth very badly, so I keep on breaking them one by one and I suspect I'm going to end up toothless within a few years because root canals just don't hold up to my night time gnawing (even with a mouthguard).

Oh and I second the Oragel Plus (available from all good supermarket pharmacy counters for a fiver) - amazing stuff, even when you have half a tooth missing, but you do tend to go numb in your lip for a short while after using it, much like the anaesthetic injections.

Feel better soon, Tom, and I hope you're not hurting too much now the anaesthetic's worn off.

this sounds very familiar. My wisdoms were impacted, and I had an abscess on one of them which is what prompted me to go to the dentist after a 10 year abstinence. I am such a coward with the dentist, I ended up having a full general anaesthetic. I too woke up thinking I'd been in a fight.. (in fact, my entire body hurt thanks to that muscle relaxant stuff they give)

Yuck!

Are you sure she took all the bits out? A friend of mine had her wisdom teeth out and the dentist left fragments of jaw bone sticking into / out of her jaw bone...... which was nice!

Hope you have someone administering TLC and lots of icecream! :o)

Meant 'sticking into / out of her gum'!

That's the most revolting thing I've ever seen on t'internet! Respect (and sympathy) is due!

you haven't lived, mate.

Pop the photo under your pillow and see if the tooth fairy leaves a photo of a £1 coin.

now THAT made me laugh!

*makes mental note for when she's got kids*

maybe she gave you a funny look as she thought you still belive in the tooth fairy

The dentist asked you to hold your nose and blow so she could check if you had an oro-antral fistula.
The roots of maxillary molars are often very near or sometime actually inside the maxillary sinus. If interested, run "oro-antral fistula" through a search engine for some good information. Beware scary photos.

Hot-salt-mouth-wash is used to keep the socket clean as it heals. Rinse carefully so as not to disturb the clot which is protecting the socket from becoming infected. It's thought that the heat dilates the blood vessels, allowing more healing cells into the area.

Chlorhexidine mouthwash has its uses - but can cause staining of the teeth. This can be minimised by avoiding tea, coffee, red wine and cigarettes for a couple of hours after use.

Hope things heal quickly for you.

I had a sneaky feeling that this was the reason but I'm very glad to be told the exact reasoning behind it.

I'll have a look at the pictures when my headache and gutache (from being told not to eat) goes.

(Of course I have eaten some icecream...)

Scabs! the best wound dressing in the Universe.

Thank you for assisting me with my diet. That picture has just killed any appetite I might have had for dinner.

I had a tooth out last year, but I can't remember a thing about it because they gave me temazipam, and bloody glad of it I was too! It healed up very fast, like within days.

Wow!

But I think you got off lightly - when I had 4teeth out at the age of 14 I came out of theatre I had both of my collar bones (I know i should know the correct term please don't mock me) BROKEN by the consultant who didn't realise he'd done it!

How do you not know a bone has broken under your hand?

As teenagers, a friend and I both visited the dentist on the same day (different dentists) for extractions under GA. Mine was straightforward and I woke up afterwards with a tender mouth and staggered home. She woke up rather earlier to find the dentist's foot against her shoulder as he tried to pull the offending molar!

Guess if his boots are thick enough he wouldn't feel the crack!

Now I had always thought (hoped) that it was an urban myth about them leaving a boot/knee/hand print bruise on you!
I did read that the reason your cheeks swell like a hamsters after a wisdom tooth op is because they just about pin your mouth behind your ear to gain access. I suppose they can get away with slightly less rough stuff if you are conscious...

I'm glad about that. It's a strange feeling lying there while he kneels on your chest to get good purchase...

kept all of mine except the one that they had to remove an inch of jaw bone. mostly cos it was drilled into several pieces (an impacted lower wisdom tooth). I wouldn't have a general anaesthetic and unnerved the dentist by naming all the instruments he was using (I was just about to take dental nurse exams). They got their own back by giving me an antibiotic shot in the posterior. I never thought I'd have to drop my trousers in the dentists......

Why is it that to tooth looks painful? I don't get it. Now if we were actually looking at where that tooth used to be I would understand why I'm sitting here counting my own teeth with my tongue trying to remember the last time I visited my dentist...

Hope you find those painkillers!

You are soooooooooooooooooooooooooo brave!

Glenda

The dentist should be used to patients wanting to keep their teeth. Surely they have heard of the tooth fairy!

On a side note I have all of my son's teeth - which sounds macarbe, but honestly isn't. From his first baby milk teeth to his 4 impacted wisdom teeth extracted at age 18.

We even kept our dog's 'baby' teeth, as well as our own, so it doesn't seem strange to me either.

yay! it's not just me, then - I kept one of my cats baby teeth :)

Somewhere in here... (looks at bombsite of a room, sighs) I have a small tin with my most prized childhood possessions in. These include a piece of silver birch bark, a shiny plastic shell, and about 4 of my baby teeth. Can't remember why I didn't put them out for the Tooth Fairy, but it's interesting still having them.

Oh, and my sister lost a tooth on the Poole-Cherbourg ferry once. She got £1 AND 1 franc from the Tooth Fairy...

Wow, that's big. I hate, probably my biggest hate, the numbness of the aneasthetic afterwards. So much so that I flatly refuse to have an injection for a filling. My dentist is very good and I may get a twinge from the drill when he gets near/touches the nerve, but nothing a tight grip on the arms of the chair doesn't fix.

And oh the bliss when the filling is squeezed in. From that moment on while he shapes it and finishes it there is no pain and NO numbness. Worth it for a twinge of pain rather than an hour or more or numbness and dribbling like a St.Bernard.

You should try it sometime, trust me.

To add insult to injury the dentist asks you to "rinse", so you do, after having four injections you cant even feel your own head, so what happens, you dribble and squit the rinse stuff all over the place. I think they do this for one reason only, they have a hidden camera in the room, and at the dentists christmas meal they get the video out and have a jolly good piss take, "do you remember this one" you can picture it now cant you.

Bloody hell. I am also off to brush my teeth now.

The injections were the worst for me - I had four, and I can still imagine the very sensations as my dentist stuck the needles into the roof of my mouth - he did that 15 years ago! M

I'm happy to go to my dentist, had my teeth drilled to the nerves and filled - I can put up with that, but no more injections in my mouth!

2 things:

1) holy shit!
2) I wish I hadn't read all the comments *squeamish*

;)

Hypnosis for fillings is great. You come out as fresh as a daisy and none of the hassle of injections. Wouldn't use hypnosis for an extraction though. I had a tooth crowned under hypnosis but didn't find that was completely successful, more discomfort than I would have liked.

People's responses to hynosis vary, you just have to see if you are a successful subject. Also you have to find a dentist that does it. Unfortunately the majority don't.

is that amalgam on the filling? u had the tooth removed to avoid a mercury dump from getting the amalgam drilled?

OK - this just goes to confirm my belief that English Dentistry is still absolute crap. When I still lived there I had the absolute worst root canal EVER from some hack in Maidstone. Fortunately, 13 years in the US and many thousands of dollars later (there's the difference), my teeth are still crap but not QUITE so crap as they were...

Fantastic! Isn't it interesting how fascinated people are by tooth stories, the grislier the better... when I was a child (50yrs ago) I seemed to get toothache every Christmas, something to do with all those selection boxes. The dentist gave me a GA for an extraction and told me to dream of Father Christmas. The next thing I knew I was coming round halfway through with F.C's face dissolving into the dentist's horrified one. That left me pretty phobic of dentists. However, top wisdom teeth were OK but bottom ones were horizontal so that meant hospital. I was warned about the jaw and collar bones but they were OK. What happened was that I'd swallowed a lot of blood, threw it up and pulled out my stitches giving me what is known as a dry socket, just about as painful as tri-geminal neuralgia. The next event was a huge lower jaw molar. I'd been on a very dehydrating drug for a long time and used to wake up with my lips cracked and bleeding, the effect on my gums wasn't too good either so this molar was stranded and broke up when the dentist tried to take it out. It tooj him an hour! I'm noy phobic any more, I've had plenty of aversion therapy. I DO clean my teeth very thoroughly and use those tiddly mini brushes between them.

Boy am I lucky.

I paid ~dearly~ for the privledge of having 3 severely impacted wisdom teeth (one shattered wtih a gaping hole in the centre; MASSIVE infecton risk, no less, might I add!) to go private, and have the removals done under anesthetic around a month and a half ago.... It was one of the most pleasant experiences ever. :)

One of the teeth was so impacted sideways they had to cut a portion of the jawbone out to get the tooth out.

£2,000 lighter, and some WICKED teeth in a plastic capsule which rival yours (no jaw bone, thankfully!) but really gruesome nonetheless.

It was a nice, clean hospitial with a private room, wonderful healthcare, great surgeons, great nurses and right next to the private hospitial was one of the worst public hospitials in the country.. Chase Farm (Where I have been a patient once, my husband once, and I swear, never, ever again. I've got stories that would make *YOUR* Toes curl!

=Dana