I feel like this is a question that so many people have. When you’re up that high and have minimal space, it seems like there’s very little you can do if someone is uncooperative. If the cops got up to the top and realized they were uncooperative, what’s the best move?
I am 14 days post-op and I figured that I would write a long thread of some helpful advice/knowledge. I have recovered near perfectly thus far (knock on wood) with almost no swelling, pain etc. I had all 4 impacted wisdom teeth removed on June 17th, it is now July 2nd.
If you have any questions, I'd love to help you out. Feel free to ask below.
Pre-Op Anxiety
I had super bad anxiety going into my procedure. Anxiety sucks, but if you have it badly, it's gonna be the worst part for you. If you're anxious, you're not alone.
If you're anxious and your surgeon is able to prescribe you Valium or an alternative benzodiazepine, I would heavily recommend it. For me, I was given 1 single dose to take an hour before my morning surgery. Though Valium did cause a little bit of anterograde amnesia and I pretty much lost my perception of time on it, I don't think I could've gone without it.
IV Sedation
My surgeon decided that IV sedation was the best fit for me. I have never been under anesthesia, but this was actually the easiest part of the entire process. I also hate IVs, but the Valium did good enough at controlling my fear and I pretty much ignored the IV due to the Valium in my system.
For me, I was talking to the assistants and shortly after, the surgeon came in. He prepped me and used some alcohol wipes and placed the IV in. He said he was gonna quick run some meds to relax me, and after that, I woke up in recovery. While people often say online that you'll feel "warm" and out of it, that wasn't the case for me. I never felt tired, warm, or anything of that nature.
Trust your anesthesiologist and surgeon. While it may sound scary putting your life in other people's hands, they undergo extensive training and are rigorously certified and monitored. Anesthesia is incredibly safe, especially in healthy individuals. For a healthy person, your risk of death from anesthesia is about 1 in 1,000,000 - you are statistically more likely to get involved in a fatal car accident on the way to the surgery than having a fatal issue from anesthesia. The meds they use have very short duration and can be reversed in a flip second if anything goes wrong.
What to Expect Directly After Surgery
The first day, you'll probably be super exhausted (especially if you took anti-anxiety meds) due to the anesthesia. Bleeding is absolutely normal the first day, along with numbness. Swelling, at least from my knowledge, isn't usually prominent on the first day. You'll likely see swelling peak on days 2-3. You will definitely have a stiff jaw post-surgery, and it may take up to a week for it to fix itself, but it is manageable.
Pain Meds & Antibiotics
While my doctor prescribed me plenty of doses of hydrocodone-acetaminophen, I ultimately did not use them once. I actually did not feel any pain at all throughout the entire recovery. The first couple days I took acetaminophen every 6 hours and did not cycle in Advil like most people. I was prescribed Amoxicillin to take every 8 hours, which I did for 5 days as specified by my surgeon. The side effects from amoxicillin progressively got worse, including nausea, stomach aches, and stomach cramps. Once I was off it, I felt amazing.
What You Can Eat
For the first couple hours after your surgery, it is generally advisable to stick with a liquid diet. Apple juice, water, and Gatorade for some electrolytes. Avoid carbonation until your sockets are healed up enough.
This is what my meals looked like for my recovery, though everyone heals differently and one person's experience is never identical to yours. Do only what you feel comfortable with eating.
Days 1-3: I pretty much stuck with mashed potatoes, yogurt, and mac n cheese. You could probably throw scrambled eggs in, along with smoothies.
Day 4: I tried pasta for the first time. I made some Pasta Roni because it's angel hair pasta. I was able to overcook it a little bit and cut it into smaller pieces before taking bites. Pretty much all I had that day apart from yogurt and pudding. Pudding is an amazing dessert you can have and it helped cure some cravings.
Day 5: I scheduled a check-up with my provider's office. Though it wasn't my original surgeon, she was extremely helpful and told me I could return back to non-crunchy foods. After that, I got some chicken nuggets and fries from Wendy's but was still a little nervous to eat them. Only stipulation was no crunchy foods like almonds, chips, etc. but she said I could have those after a couple days.
If your office does not typically provide post-op checkups, I would heavily recommend scheduling one because it's a good baseline to see how you're healing and what you can eat. My cravings definitely sucked on days 1-3, but honestly, once I had the pasta and pudding to switch it up, it wasn't half bad anymore.
Salt Water Rinses & Syringing
These become important once your surgeon tells you start them. Salt water rinses suck at first, but they're pretty tolerable after the first couple times. Salt water rinses you should generally start a couple days post-op, with syringing waiting until days 5-7. These timeframes are obviously dependent by the person and there isn't a set number. Remember for salt water rinses, you should not be aggressive and simply move your head side to side lightly. For me, I used 1/4 cup of water with about 1 tsp of salt.
Stitches
If you have dissolvable stitches (which is the most common, they will likely be brown in color), they will loosen over time. For me, my first stitch fell out on day 7 (I think) and the other fell out on day 10. They did not traditionally "dissolve", but they got to the point where they were dangling so I used my tongue to very easily nudge them out of my mouth. I swallowed my day 10 stitch somehow without realizing, but yeah.
Bad Breath
Bad breath is common and can be suck. I was hanging out with my friends and got pretty self conscious about it. No matter how hard I brushed my teeth and tongue, I couldn't get the smell out. Your breath should not be 10/10 awful, and if it is, I would recommend getting a check up because that can be a sign of infection.
Bad breath is caused from the smell of dried blood, normal bacteria, and because you have a healing scab/tissue in your mouth. If you're taking antibiotics, they can also throw off the bacteria in your mouth and cause imbalances which contributes to bad breath.
For me, my bad breath peaked on days 3-6 and got progressively better by the day. Once I was off the antibiotics, it seemed to get better. However, this is also paired with the fact I got my sockets cleaned out for the first time at my checkup, along with natural healing getting better. Someone on a thread commented that changing salt brands worked, so I tried that, and while I don't if there was correlation between my bad breath and salt brands, it seemed to get better after changing salt brands. But take that with a grain of salt (no pun intended) because it was paired with multiple things at once. For me, I went from generic brand Pink Himalayan Salt -> Morton salt.
Don't Sit Online Reading Stories
You have minimal control on how your body handles the healing process. You can do your best to help the healing process, such as avoiding suction and being extra careful about dry socket, using ice, etc. You rarely hear about the success stories, because they're not as interesting as bad stories. For me, I had virtually zero swelling (waking up in the mornings had me a little swollen), virtually zero pain (if any), and zero dry socket. As long as you follow your surgeon's general advice, you can easily avoid the stipulations that come along with extraction.
If you are younger and have to get your wisdom teeth out, now is the best time. I am in the 18-20 age range and my surgeon heavily advised to do it now rather than later. I am thankful he persuaded me into doing it sooner, because I would've probably put it off otherwise. The older you get, the slower and more painful the process can become. Not to mention if they're impacted, you'll suffer from the awful pain of impacted teeth along with the risk of infection, decaying, etc. and you'll have to do the procedure anyways. Though it sucks and takes lots of courage & bravery to schedule the surgery, I couldn't have been happier with my decision to do it now.
It Wasn't Bad.
Yes yes, this might sound like I'm playing the devil's advocate, but I'm not. Like I said, you rarely hear about the people with an amazing, painless healing process. People love to vent online about their bad experiences, but very few rant about their good experiences. This was a 3/10 on the "suck" scale. Sure it sucks the first couple days, but it's manageable as long as you occupy yourself (for me, I started watching the world cup daily to occupy myself). If I wanted to, I could've gone back to work on day 3 and been totally fine. However, I took extra time to let myself heal and put off work for the week.
TLDR
The experience wasn't really bad at all. The anxiety beforehand was the worst part, get prescribed Valium if you can. IV sedation was a breeze, along with the actual procedure. Listen to surgeon, they know what's best for you. Ease back into eating, take it slow, and stay on top of salt water rinses and syringing when instructed to do so. Don't panic over the threads online. Don't panic about dry socket -- it's rare in people that listen. You have minimal control over the healing process, let your body work its magic and you will be fine, I promise. Mild swelling and bad breath is normal and both will get better over time. Overall, I had virtually no pain, almost no swelling, and no dry socket.
Got 4 impacted wisdom teeth extracted Wednesday morning. It has been a wonderful recovery so far, I haven't had really any pain and zero swelling. My bottom 2 sockets seem to be healing perfectly fine.
The last 3 days the bad breath has been bothering me. Though I was very gentle the first 2 days, I have progressively gotten more aggressive with brushing because I can't tolerate the bad breath. It's better at times compared to others, but I truly don't know if this is normal or not - and when to expect it to disappear. If I brush my teeth, it goes away for a couple minutes but comes back shortly after. When I say bad breath, I mean like absolutely disgusting.
I don't necessarily have an open hole on my bottom two because both of the wounds have stitches. I'm not sure if food is getting stuck in there, because I don't really see much of a visible spot for it to enter.
Is anyone else experiencing this as well?
I’m scheduled for wisdom teeth removal in the morning. I am getting 4 removed but they are not exposed yet, they’re completely under my gums still.
The surgeon prescribed me valium to take prior to the appointment to help anxiety, but I’m also unsure what to expect when taking valium.
My main concern is about the IV sedation. I’ve never had anesthesia before, and I’ve also never had an IV placed in me. I’m worried about the IV sedation and what to expect. What can I expect?
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Latam is typically more expensive with points, but only by a couple thousand. Availability on Latam is far better when compared to AA. AA flights have been trickier to find for the dates that I'd like to go down, and my dates are pretty open.
I'm wondering if anyone here has flown both, and what they would recommend. I am actively trying to avoid Latam's old 787-9 configuration of 2-2-2 and instead do 1-2-1 reverse herringbone, but I'm not sure on what their fleet looks in that aspects.
Thanks in advance.
Used C1 Offers for the first time and I've tried calling support various times and they aren't very helpful. Anyone know a direct email/phone to contact them? Looking for them to manually credit me.