Wisdom teeth extraction: How I lived to tell my teenage dental tale

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Just the thought of it makes any teenager cringe.

Wisdom teeth that need to come out.

One minute, the dental hygienist says you're doing a good job flossing—  the next minute you're getting your third molars (aka "wisdom teeth") yanked.

A harrowing experience? You bet. Yet I lived to tell my dental tale — and, surprisingly, it wasn't that bad.

I'd been ignoring a dull toothache toward the back of my mouth the whole month of July, during which I was doing a pretty awesome internship at U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer's office.

There was no time for any fun, let alone dental surgery. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and my parents — both of whom are dentists — broke the news: My wisdom teeth had to be extracted.

Dad said something about "horizontal partial bony impactions" of the worst kind. Great. Just my luck.

But I had a couple of Sweet 16s and a CTV appearance to do, so I begged Mom to hold off on the appointment. She reluctantly agreed.

Just when I thought she'd forgotten —  and exactly the very next day after my internship was over — I awoke from sleeping in nice and late on a hot August morning. Mom nonchalantly called me into her home office.

Thinking it was nothing big, I dragged myself out of bed. Boy, was I wrong.

"Charista, honey, you're getting your wisdom teeth removed in an hour — go get ready," she said.

Excuse me?!

"My mom is so funny," I thought. Maybe she was pulling my leg, I hoped. But no. In an hour, someone was pulling my teeth!

As I stood there, dazed and confused and a little bit horrified, she added, "Oh, and you better eat something, too, because you won't be able to eat for the rest of the day."

That's when I realized she wasn't kidding. I started to freak out a little.

First, I was mad about the short notice. When the anger faded, my nerves took over. I was scared.

My mind whirred with the worst possible scenarios: What if the oral surgeon slips and hits one of my nerve roots? What if he slices open too much of my gums and I bleed to death?"

Mom calmly reassured me none of that would happen because she'd made the appointment with one of the best oral surgeons in town.

And she was right.

When we arrived at Dr. Robert Novo's office, his assistants took me into the X-Ray room to get a panoramic X-ray of my mouth. Afterward, I was brought into his check-up room to get a pre-op consultation before the actual operation.

Dr. Novo was very nice and professional. He studied my X-rays and told me he was going to extract my two right-side wisdom teeth.

What's that, you say?! Two?! On the same side?! In one day?!

That's when I interrogated Dr. Novo, who patiently answered all of my crazy questions about anesthetics, my gum nerves being damaged, and if there was a possibility I could die.

Dr. Novo reassured me everything was going to be fine.

Afterward, his two assistants brought me into the operating room. They gave me a surgical gown, sat me down in the dental chair, and covered my hair in a surgical cap.

I won't lie, it was a scary scenario. I was shaking in my boots.

Before the surgery began, his assistant gave me a gargle's cup of Peridex to cleanse my mouth. Then I sat and waited for the main event.

Thank heavens for the dental assistants, who were very nice. As I was waited for Dr. Novo, we talked about our summers and what we had planned for the rest of the vacation — a welcome distraction.

Finally, Dr. Novo entered the room.

He gave me around six shots of Novocaine to numb the entire right side of my mouth. When I couldn't feel anything and couldn't even pronounce my name correctly, Dr. Novo knew the shots worked.

He then put an ice-cube-like box in my mouth to help keep it open during the surgery (I was too numb to do it myself).

At this point, I probably said at least 30 Hail Marys in my head. This soothed me profoundly.

Dr. Novo's kind, calming voice reassured me I would be OK, that he would extract the top one first, and then the bottom one.

"Fine with me," I thought. I just wanted to get it over with.

Dr. Novo started poking around my gums with some dental instruments and a scalpel. I didn't feel a thing.

But then he started drilling away at the tooth itself because he announced he had to remove it in pieces. "Well, great," I thought.

Before I knew it, he was asking his assistant to hand him the stitching string to stitch up the hole where the wisdom tooth used to be.

When he began sewing, I was bracing myself for the bad part of the surgery.

But it never came. It was over in a flash. I was shocked. It took no time at all! What was I so worried about, again?

Onto the second tooth.

I was more confident now, knowing it wasn't that it wouldn't be too bad or too long.

That's when Dr. Novo told me the bottom tooth will be harder to extract because it was more seriously impacted.

"That's okay," I told myself. "One down, one more to go. I can do it!"

Another decade of prayers was said to our Blessed Mother as Dr. Novo drilled and pulled away at my tooth.

To get to the hidden parts of the tooth, he cut parts of my gums open to reach the unerupted sections of my wisdom tooth.

Once all the parts were exposed, he started excavating the remnants of the wisdom tooth. (I hope you're not eating while reading this).

Then the curve ball in the the operation: It turned out my bottom right wisdom tooth was triple rooted, which wasn't revealed on the X-Ray. How fun!

But Dr. Novo was the epitome of grace under pressure. The situation was handled well and professionally.

Not so long after, the surgical extraction was complete.

"That's it? It's over?," I thought to myself while still in the dental chair.

Easy peasy.

It only took an hour, maybe an hour and a quarter, at most. I didn't even feel a thing. Those of you who are worried when it's your turn, don't be.

The worst part is the aftermath. Once the Novocaine wore off, I had toothaches, swelling, and bleeding from my surgical site.

But the bleeding and oozing stopped completely after three days and the overall pain and swelling went away after a week-and-a-half.

So, don't be scared to get your wisdom teeth removed. Most people have to go through it. It's not as terrible as some people make it out to be.

You'll survive. I did. And once the healing is over, you'll be pain-free.

What's better than that?

Source: http://www.silive.com/charista/2015/09/wisdom_teeth_removal_not_as_ba.html

In other dental news: Aurident is proud to offer the Optimet-DS 6000 Advanced Dental Lab Scanner and Exocad software. Easy-to-Use, Fully-Automatic, High-Accuracy 3-D Scans for All Dental Applications. Call us at (800) 422-7373 for more details.