quote:

Originally posted by M-11:

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Still have mine. Dentist always asks me if I want to have them removed, he never has a good reason other than it will make it easier for brushing/flossing. I'm keeping mine until there's an actual problem.

Same here. Until there's a health reason to extract them, they stay...and are being used!

I've been told there is potential for damage to the nerve leading to the lower lip, as well as death of bone in the jaw around the roots, but it's unclear as to what the odds of anything like this are, and I don't think I know anyone going through anything like that. Sounds like a lot of you are in my camp, trying to understand why this is medically necessary.

I’m a weirdo. Gots all mine. Never had any of them pulled.

I was told to have mine pulled when I was 16, and I actually just got them pulled last Thursday, and it is every bit as fun as you think it will be.

And I was 16 a looooong time ago

My wisdom teeth were impacted and my dentist recommended that all four be removed. The surgeon declined to remove the upper teeth. Good call, as they never became an issue.

My two upper M3s erupted around age 18. By the age of 20, they had grown sideways into my cheeks, and dental caries had developed. With 0 degrees being down, they had grown 30-45 degrees clockwise into my cheeks and were causing chronic bleeding in the cheeks of my mouth. A small town Texas dentist pulled out upper right M3 without consequent. He encountered much difficulty extracting upper left M3. He finally removed it, with much bleeding. He described that tooth as having a "fish hook" root. No pain medication was prescribed. Local anesthetic wore off while I was driving south of Denton, TX on I-35W. The pain was so severe that I began losing consciousness and had to pull off the road and suffer for a while. Obviously I made to College Station alive, but I hurt greatly for quite a while.

That dentist told me that the two lower M3s existed and would eventually emerge. They never have and obviously never will.

Never had any to start with.
Serious.

quote:

Originally posted by Sunset_Va:
Never had any to start with.
Serious.

Are you an Aboriginal Tasmanian? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_tooth

Three of mine were pulled in 1985 by a Navy dentist on the Battleship Iowa. Dental was aft next to the turret 3 barbette. We were doing a gun shoot that day and I was a little concerned, but there were no incidents. My appointment was at 1300 and it took about 1.5 hours. They gave me Motrin and the rest of the day off. By contrast, my sister was in the Air Force and she had hers pulled. She got some sort of heavy duty pain reliever and a week off.

It's still painful to write about it!
I had broken one and it was giving me pretty much constant pain, so I was referred by my dentist to an oral surgeon. The panoramic xray he showed me was kind of freaky. Aside from the broken lower on one side, the opposite side upper was growing in almost horizontally. I was not having any pain, but he said that it was already abrading the adjacent molar and was going to eventually cause a bad cavity in a place I could not clean easily. He recommended removal of that tooth, and then something about the above and below bite would not be supported and so he wanted to take out all four. I had dental insurance, so I figured for once in my life I should do the smart thing.

I was in my mid thirties at the time, so I expected it was going to not be as simple as when I was a teen, but things went sideways for this whole ordeal. I had scheduled a Thursday procedure with a Friday off of work and expected to recover on the weekend and be back to work the following Monday. I show up for my appointment only to be told that they had me scheduled for Friday, not Thursday. *sigh*, OK, I had my brother as a driver, so that screwed up his days off too. Came back Friday and started the procedure. Not sure if the doc juiced me because I am a bigger guy or not, but some 5-drug cocktail took care of putting me out. When I woke up, had to use the bathroom, and the nurse told me if I could go unassisted the doctor said I could be released. I was pretty wobbly, but the wheeled me out to the parking lot and I left.

I had just purchased a new Durango, and my brother was driving. I sat in the front passenger seat, reclined and tried to relax for the 20 minute ride home. About halfway there, got overwhelmingly nauseous and had to vomit, so I told my brother to pull over. He's telling me to just throw up in a towel and I can clean up later, and I tell him I'm not puking in my new car. LOL. He finds a shoulder of this rural road to pull over. I open the door, sit up.......and BAM, blacked out and fell out of the car on my face. Slid down the gravel shoulder and broke my glasses. Cut my eye above and below. The good thing was, the impact woke me back up. OWWWW!! My brother is freaking out, runs around to help me up. never puked, crawled back in the car and made him take me home. So I get home and look in the mirror. THEN I puked. LOL, looked like the Terminator, half a face. All road rashed and gravel still in my face.

My brother called the doc, and he wanted me to come back to check my stitches. He stitched up my face around my eye and cleaned up my cheek. As you can imagine, I then had every possible complication......dry sockets, infection, and the anesthetic was in my body for weeks. I kept feeling prickly needles in my finger tips. Rubbed my fingers raw trying to stop the feeling. turned into two weeks off of work, with bags of frozen peas wrapped to my jaws for the first week. So that's what I tell everyone about my wisdom teeth. Sure, no big deal. lol. A gall bladder removal and subsequent stroke was less traumatic.

All 4 pulled at the same time...no pain at all to speak of past the day of extraction or maybe next. They had come in straight, but were crowding my mouth and I would bite my cheek periodically. Dentist wanted them out many years before I finally had it done. To be honest, I wanted some time off work, so decided to go ahead and have them pulled; milked it for 2 weeks.

I had all 4 removed when I was 20. They were crowding my other teeth & my teeth are nice & straight so I didn't want it to be an issue. An oral surgeon did it. I was put completely under & needed to have someone drive me home. 3 came out nice & easy. The other 1 shattered so the Dr. did the best he could to get all the pieces. I was barely with it on the way home. I did have to throw up while we were on the interstate, but still got over in time to throw up outside of the car at the side of the interstate. Made it the rest of the way. Fun part was that my gums healed up but chunks of the broken teeth were still inside so months & months later, my body would push pieces of bone out like your body does when a splinter pushes itself out. I'd split out bloody shards of bone into the sink. Didn't hurt though & my teeth are still nice & straight.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommydogg:
Three of mine were pulled in 1985 by a Navy dentist on the Battleship Iowa. Dental was aft next to the turret 3 barbette. We were doing a gun shoot that day and I was a little concerned, but there were no incidents. My appointment was at 1300 and it took about 1.5 hours. They gave me Motrin and the rest of the day off. By contrast, my sister was in the Air Force and she had hers pulled. She got some sort of heavy duty pain reliever and a week off.

I was doing push-ups in one of the sand pits at MCRD a few hours later, spitting blood all over the place. Drill Instructor finally ordered me back to the Barracks.

Had all mine removed 25 years ago (impacted) and they removed two other teeth at the same time. They gave them to me but I misplaced them.

Had 8 teeth removed for braces when I was 12. Then around 16 the DDS said my wisdom teeth were pointed forward and would mess up my other teeth. I had just moved to the mountains of NC.

My mom had me put on a bus from Atlanta to meet my pop-pop on the side of the Interstate in north Fla. Then he took me onward to Tampa where my family DDS gave me the juice....I remember the first drop of the stuff...then the nurse asked what I wanted for christmas and in my hormonal driven mind, I told her e x a c t l y.

My grandmother drove me back to her house-but it was almost Xmas, so she got side tracked at the mall. While I was passed out in the passenger seat of her car; imagine if you will, a teenager drooling blood into a pool on his shirt....I remember the guy's look on his face when I woke up and saw him peering in on me.

Two days later they said I could go home. So two grandmothers and a great uncle got into a car and we took off to NC. Grandma #1 wasn't driving to my standards and when she stopped for gas I got into the drivers seat and got off of 441 and got onto I75.

They never let me drive again. But we did get to the mntns in record time.