Hi! 😬 I missed publishing a post on Sunday but I did have a pretty busy weekend and didn’t spend a lot of time writing. I went to a Bob Evans concert – and if you’ve been reading my blog for some time, you’ll know that I love his intimate gigs 🎵 – and it was Nick’s sister’s 21st birthday on Sunday.

While I had those events to look forward to, I also got to look forward to having two wisdom teeth extracted yesterday. Something about it was oddly exciting as well as nerve-wracking. I used to want to be a dentist when I was younger, up until I was 18, because I had such a fascination with teeth and oral hygiene, so in a way I felt like I was somewhat biased to looking forward to getting my teeth taken out.

I had been experiencing some pain and inflammation of the gums in the past week, and in all honesty I haven’t seen a dentist since I moved to the city – though I used to see a dentist religiously before then, and hardly had issues with my teeth. So I had to sought out a new dentist. It was not too difficult to locate a dentist near where I live and work and that would be partially covered by my health insurance. I just needed to see someone ASAP because my gums had gone from being a bit inflamed to very inflamed overnight, so there was cause for concern.

I have two upper wisdom teeth that have already grown down, and that happened about fifteen years ago after I got my braces removed. It was an odd experience because I had to get my last upper molars removed and wear a mouthguard for many months to basically pull the rest of my teeth back and fill the gap in. This is part of the reasons why I think teeth are incredible and why I wanted to be a dentist or an orthodontist. 🤣

So my problem wisdom teeth were the bottom ones – my old orthodontist said that it is unlikely they will come out, but if they do, I would definitely have to get them removed because there was no room for them. So that’s what happened! They were facing forwards rather than upwards, and after getting an x-ray last week, my new dentist found that they were both in fact infected under the gums, and one of them had come to surface because it had nowhere to go.

After a course of antibiotics I had to get the teeth removed ASAP. The procedure itself yesterday got me a bit nervous but they gave me a sedative so I was mostly relaxed. I wouldn’t say painful was the right word, but like the dentist said, there was not really supposed to be any pain, just a lot of pressure. So I would say it was a bit discomforting and the worst parts were towards the end of getting each tooth extracted. He did the harder one first, but that kind of meant that when taking out the second one, I kinda just felt really uncomfortable and a bit of pain everywhere in my mouth. 😅

I was okay after the procedure, but several hours later after falling asleep for a few hours, I found it really hard to get back to sleep again. I was tossing and turning and feeling hot and sweaty, and I think it was after 2:30am that I finally got to sleep after getting up to have a glass of water. My face was really swollen and the pain was… not really excruciating (like that time I fell down the stairs), so I wasn’t crying from being in a lot of pain, but it was just really uncomfortable to bear.

Today I found myself having to sleep a lot during the day, likely because the painkillers made me drowsy, but I slept alright. I already prepared myself by buying soup and planning to eat mostly liquids, so soups and protein shakes are go. I did try to eat noodles for lunch today but it took me an hour because I could only chew with my incisors. 😔

My face is still very swollen and it basically looks like I have a square jaw or like I’m chewing with my mouth full. I’m mostly alright though, and I’ve gotten used to the pain. I just hope it doesn’t get too much worse from here, but it shouldn’t. 🤞 This benefit far outweighs having terrible infections in my gums.

Interestingly enough, just recently I decided to improve my oral hygiene because I’d become really lazy to floss my teeth. I even bought some teeth-whitening mouthwash because I wanted something to clean out my mouth after my gums started getting inflamed – normally I don’t care much for mouthwash and I generally find it unnecessary. I just picked up a bottle that was discounted, and it just happened to be the teeth-whitening one. I found that although it didn’t make my teeth whiter, necessarily, it actually removed some of the tea and coffee stains that have built up on my teeth over the years. So that was a pleasant surprise.

I haven’t been able to brush my teeth, but I was given special mouthwash. I hope I recover pretty quickly. One of the concerns was that the root of one of my teeth was close to a nerve in my jaw and I risked temporary nerve damage, but from what I can feel now, I don’t think it’s affected. On the mend! 💐