This summer I got to be one of those lucky individuals who to get
my wisdom teeth removed. Like everyone else on planet Earth, I have seen so many videos of people who have had their wisdom teeth removed and have been horrified. People say things they don't mean to say, they do things they wouldn't normally do, and they are in tremendous pain. But my experience was very different from what I walked in thinking and expecting.
When I first walked into the doctor's office I was supposed to only get 2 of my teeth removed, and then before I went into surgery I was told that I was getting all of them removed. So you can guess how bad my anxiety was
when I heard this from my oral surgeon. When I was put under I felt like I was only under for 2 seconds and woke up feeling like a blown-up balloon. At this point, after the surgery, I didn't even want to know what I looked like since I was expecting my cheeks to like a pufferfish that was all blown up. When I finally built up enough courage to look at my phone through Snapchat, I wasn't as swollen as I thought I was going to be. I would include a picture of me with my slightly less chubby cheeks, but I am going to save everyone the embarrassment that these pictures hold.
I was also blessed that I was not loopy at all, just extremely exhausted from being put under. I was able to say what I wanted to say when I wanted to say it and without anything being too slurry or letting out any slurs. I thought this was the highlight of my whole surgery, at least for the most part. I was stressing for the whole surgery about how I was going to wake up and when I woke up I have never been so happy to be normal. As I was going home, I realized that I couldn't feel my lower lip or even my chin and it was the weirdest feeling in the world. That was the lowest part of this whole surgery, not being able to feel my whole face.
I was also expecting the pain to be unbearable since they gave me two different types of painkillers. One of them was ibuprofen that just was stronger than what you can purchase over-the-counter. The other painkiller was Hydrocodone, which I have completely avoided because I don't need to become a drug addict at my young age!!! Be sure to use ice every 30 minutes (on for 30 minutes and then off for 30 minutes). This helped reduce the swelling BIG TIME! I also had milk shakes A LOT! This also helped reduce the swelling and pain. But I feel like I have been blessed by God because the pain has been minimal, it honestly just feels like a constant discomfort on the side of my mouth that I just kind of forget about every now and then.
So if you have to get your wisdom teeth out any time soon, my advice is to follow the doctor's orders because it will help you get better sooner and make you feel better. I also would suggest to not stress out about it too much because it is not as bad or as painful as many make it out to be. I would also suggest getting all your wisdom teeth removed at once so that you don't have to go back and go through everything again. Cause even though it was not that bad, I would never want to go back and go through all that surgery again; although having people serve you for the first couple days is really nice!!!
