A Hopeful Conclusion

Well, I think the burden of the wisdom teeth is coming to a pass. For 9 days I was on pain killers, and yesterday I managed to make it through the entire day without taking one.

Now, I did feel pain, and brushing my teeth sucks, and eating is often less than pleasant, but overall I believe that the pain threshold has been lowered, and that gives me hope. I was supposed to go to a dentist on Friday, but I never got around to it until the afternoon, by which time it was too late for the offices, which are reopened on Monday. So my only choice was to wait it out, and I'm pretty glad that I did.

Ideally, from here the pain will eventually entirely recede, and I can return to eating normally. Worst case scenario, something gets infected, which would be a thrill within itself.

But hey, here's hoping that the saga has concluded, and this is something I can tell my children about when they get theirs removed with lasers.

Dry Socket

Wisdom Teeth sockets are troublesome.

So, 8 full days after getting my Wisdom Teeth removed, I still have a lot of pain. At first, I thought that I was just being a wuss, and that I should be able to take it. However, while I was at work last night, I sneezed.

And that hurt, my jaw, and my wisdom teeth sockets, a lot.

So I looked up dry socket again, to reinform myself of their symptoms, which are:

• Partial or total loss of the blood clot at the extraction site, which you may notice as an empty-looking (dry) socket
• Visible bone in the socket
• Pain that increases between one and three days after tooth extraction and that typically becomes severe and unrelenting
• Pain that radiates from the socket to your ear or eye on the same side of your face
• Bad breath or a foul odor coming from your mouth
• Unpleasant taste in your mouth
• Swollen lymph nodes around your jaw or neck

I have 5 of the 7. While my pain may not be jaw-dropping (ha!), it does seem to be quite "unrelenting", and spreads from my sockets to my chin and forehead. When I sneezed yesterday I got the same taste in my mouth that I got when I first had them removed. That weird bloody/puss taste. Delicious.

So anyways, now my assumption is that I have dry socket, which sucks, hard.

Meanwhile, I still can't eat anything crunchy without suffering dearly for it. I just want to eat some chips, or a toasted sandwhich, or lettuce!