Bye-Bye Wisdom Tooth

So if you recall, Boxing Day evening I discovered (with a lot of pain) that I cracked and broke off a piece of my wisdom tooth.

I promised myself at the beginning of this year that I would goto the dentist and well let's just say that I ended up there on an emergency basis to confirm that yes it is indeed broken, once normal business hours resumed I got the call saying I would need to visit with with dental surgeon about having it removed. 

The pain was coming and going and only getting worse with each flare up. I saw the surgeon and obviously being pregnant complicates things. She reccomended pulling it with just a local anesthetic but only after my OB approved of it all. Clearly I began to dread the procedure but luckily my OB approved the procedure and prescribed some string meds I could use if needed post surgery. 

January was a busy month for us, so trying to schedule in a dental surgery with time for recovery was tricky! We had vacation planned for the first week of February and I did not want to go away with any pain from either my tooth or post-procedure. So we settled on the 21st. 

The nights leading up to the procedure were very painful and ended up turning into migraines. Not fun when sharing a hotel room with a toddler. 

Thursday afternoon M took me to the dreaded appointment. Tears were streaming down my face as they got all set up. The first batch of freezing went down without too much drama. I hate needles, especially ones in my mouth. I sat for about 10 minutes for the freezing to take effect taking deep breaths. The surgeon came back in and said if I feel anything sharp to let her know, because I shouldn't feel anything aside from pressure. 

They put the jaw block in and sure enough she went to pull the tooth and I felt sharp pains around the tooth. So she stopped right away and told me she thought she would need to put in more freezing, so that is just what she went to do. Turns out she put the needle too far back and triggered my gag reflex. You bet I ended up puking, which was no easy task with a needle in my frozen mouth and a jaw block. 

The poor staff... I felt horrible, but I couldn't stop puking - like 10 minutes of puking constantly. I am not a good puker to begin with and pretty much feel like I am dying as it is going down. My mouth was frozen, which complicated things as you can all imagine... It finally stopped. They helped me get cleaned up and the surgeon came back in and said I had 2 options. I could go forward with the procedure, she was pretty sure she could get it or reschedule. 

I decided to go ahead with the procedure, as I was already frozen and I would just tough out the extra pain. The surgeon said she thought I lost about 3 days worth of food and felt bad for me. So we went ahead, knowing my gag reflex was super sensitive now from being triggered, so she put the jaw block in and went to get started and I needed to stop again, which she was okay with taking our time. She decided maybe the jaw block was irritating my gag reflex so we would do without. So we tried again and it turned out it was her retractor that was too far back now, so she gripped on to the tooth and ripped it out. It hurt like hell. The noises were horrible, but she got it all out and no drilling or stitches were needed. I felt so relieved!! 

I had to sit for about another 10 minutes for bleeding to slow down, I ended up getting lightheaded, so M came back to hear the instructions for after care and they got me some cool clothes to help. Luckily M was wearing a sweatshirt on top of his tshirt, so I was able to change before going home. All I could smell was vomit, despite being cleaned up. 

Needless to say it was not a good procedure and I wouldn't reccomend having it done when pregnant.  Because of my pregnancy hormones and location of the wisdom tooth I was at a higher risk to develop a dry socket, so I really had to take it easy for about a week.

I didn't get a great clot over the area, so we were sure I was going to end up with the dry socket, but it all worked out. I didn't end up needing the stronger pain meds and got by with just Tylenol. 

I am now a week and half post procedure and yes, it feels weird with the tooth gone, but the migraines and pain are gone! 

Oh the joys of pregnancy and dental procedures... They do not go hand in hand.