As I write this, it’s been more than two weeks since my lower wisdom teeth were extracted.

Let me narrate the experience.

So, Gim set my dentist’s appointment at Ospital ng Maynila at 8am. I was so nervous that I did not sleep the night before. I had come home late from work, around 2 or 3 in the morning, and couldn’t go to sleep right away. I watched videos, surfed the Internet, and at 6am, I took a bath. And waited for my boyfriend to wake up.

He woke up around 6:30am. And began to prepare a big breakfast for me. Not that I was hungry – in fact I had no appetite – I was too nervous. But the dentist had told him to ensure I was full right before the surgery – because I wouldn’t be able to eat a real meal for the next few days. So Gim made himself tocino and rice, and I got 2 pieces of sugar glazed fried chicken. He ended up eating one of the chicken pieces anyway, because it was too rubbery for me.

We got to the hospital around 8am. The dentist’s office was still closed, so Gim brought me to the ENT department so I could see where he worked. I think he wanted to impress me. He made me sit on his table and look at his things and all the medical equipment around. LOL.

Then he did something I made him PROMISE not to do! I told him I did not want to meet his fellow doctors! (I was feeling shy.) He said he wouldn’t.

He left me for a while on my own on the first floor. He wanted to leave me in the ENT department but I refused and so I just loitered in the hallways. Then it started to fill up with people and they all looked very unhealthy and unhygienic that I got up and left the hallway.

After a while Gim found me and then told me his colleagues wanted to see me. Argggh! Well, what could I do, he’d already told them I was there waiting downstairs. So up I went to the ENT doctors’ quarters and said hi to his friends and mingled for a bit, maybe 15 minutes, then thankfully Gim and I bid our goodbyes and went down.

If there is one thing I hate it is socializing. Making small talk is a skill I will never ever obtain and the pressure of having to think up interesting things to say to a stranger is the thing I dread the most. Even talking to people I care about is hard enough. What more strangers?

(Blogging is different. There is no pressure on me to keep my readers interested. It’s just a bonus if they are.)

So anyway. Around 8:30 I was finally seated on the dentist’s chair, my mouth opened and the dentist examining my rotting teeth. I was calm by this time because, really, what was the worst thing that could happen? Gim, on the other hand, kept peeking and pacing restlessly like a mother hen right outside the little room so I waved him away. He was making me nervous for him! Thankfully he was needed elsewhere.

The dentist injected my right gums with local anesthesia, and the truth is this was the only pain I felt during the entire exercise. Actually I can’t even call it pain because it didn’t really hurt at all, perhaps because I was used to it already given my multiple dental visits over the years. It feels just like a pinch, or an ant’s bite, then it’s over, and then your mouth starts to numb.

My dentist left me for maybe 5 minutes while the anesthesia worked its magic, then she started drilling on my gums. It felt like scraping, perhaps she was pulling back my gums to expose more of my teeth so she could have a better hold. I could feel it, the scraping, but there was no pain. And then after a bit there was pulling and suddenly my tooth was out! It was all very quick, 10 minutes tops. Then she began sewing me up and this was the part that took a long time, it was a very weird feeling getting sewed up.

And then afterwards, the dentist asked me if I wanted to remove the left wisdom tooth too. I wasn’t feeling any pain so I shrugged and said yes. And she went and worked on that too. She had a bit of trouble with that tooth, though. I think she had to cut up more of my gums and it bled a lot. Whereas my right gums got only 2 stitches, the left gums got around 4 stitches. It also bled a lot more, post-op and swelled bigger and longer, and I got a big black bruise on my left jaw a week later. Also right now there is still a hole where my left tooth was, while there isn’t a hole in my right, just an indentation.

And that’s it. The whole thing took around 30-45 minutes, the dentist was such a quick worker! She prescribed me Clindamycin (antibiotics) 4x a day for 7 days to prevent infection, Tranexamic acid 2x a day for clotting (I took it only for a day), and Celecoxib 2x a day to manage the pain (I took this for around 2-3 days then on and off for the rest of the week).

The first few days, the hardest part for me was not being able to eat anything solid, because my mouth was so swollen. I couldn’t even touch my upper and lower teeth, because my swollen cheeks would get in the way. And if I opened/closed my mouth too much my wounds would bleed. I went on the phone with Gim that first night for about 15 minutes and when I checked my mouth after, it was full of blood! I tried not to eat, but then my stomach would be in pain and I couldn’t sleep. So the first two to three days I mostly ate yogurt, lukewarm soup (arroz caldo), and drank a lot of water. Days 4-5 I was able to swallow scrambled eggs. The first week I really couldn’t chew at all, so I just kept swallowing – even hotdogs. I cut them up in little slivers and swallowed! I was really ravenous during this time – I guess I’ve never gone without protein in my life – I didn’t realize how hungry just eating carbs could be. I wanted to eat every 3 hours!!! But I slept a lot too, during this time. My body felt very weak and I just didn’t have strength to be up for long. I remember missing a lot of calls from friends and officemates, LOL.

So yeah, the pain I experienced wasn’t really related to the wisdom tooth extraction. It was hunger, plain and simple. LOL!

Exactly a week after my wisdom tooth extraction was my friend’s wedding day. And what do you know, God answered my prayers to be able to finally chew, that very day. Perhaps because I finally visited church for once! So I didn’t miss out on the yummy wedding food at all. :-) Hahahaha!

So here we go. Like I said in my previous post, my right lower wisdom tooth started hurting several weeks ago. At first I could deal with it and at times it would go away, but it progressively got worse until one night, I woke up suddenly because of the pain in my jaw almost up to the ear. I couldn’t go back to sleep and I couldn’t stand the pain.

Now let me tell you my pain threshold is pretty high. I don’t like to take medicine ESPECIALLY painkillers because I’m masochistic like that. :P

Every month on my period I’m really cranky that my boyfriend always tries to avoid being with me if he knows ahead of time I’m going to bleed soon. This is because my periods are really painful, the type where I double up on the bed for hours not being able to do anything until the pain eventually fades away. Yup that’s one good thing at least, I know my menstrual cramps last only a day at most. My bf is always insisting I take Advil or Midol or some other painkiller but I never want to. I just hate the thought of not  being able to feel the pain, because I have this warped idea that my body is SUPPOSED to feel pain to SIGNAL that I’m doing something I’m not supposed to be doing, so it’s trying to RIGHT MY WAYS. And if there is no pain, or I’m ignoring/not receiving my body’s signals, something really bad could happen to my body. So yeah, I hate the idea of taking painkillers and I try my darndest to avoid them, so long as I can stand the pain.

That night, when my jaw began to hurt, I tried to stand it as much as possible. It was 2am when I woke up but after 3 hours I had to call for help. I woke up my boyfriend at 5am and asked him if he had any pills around the house I could take for the pain. He’s a doctor and there are ALWAYS so many different pills around the house. I could be a drug dealer if I wanted, LOL. He told me where to find them and I popped one into my mouth. He also told me to rinse with Bactidol.

After a few hours it seemed the pain had become bearable and I was able to finally drift off to sleep.

I started to use Bactidol regularly after that, though no more painkillers. Still it was inevitable. I knew I had to go to the dentist to fix my teeth.

I don’t have a dentist here in Metro Manila. My dentist is back in Zamboanga, her name is Dr Flora Li Ledesma, and she’s a great dentist. She’s my family’s dentist and I went to school with her son back in elementary, and she knows all of my dental history. Mainly because everything that’s been done to my teeth leading up to my wisdom tooth hurting, has been done by Dr Ledesma.

So I was lost. I had no choice but to check out the available dentists from my insurance company and pick one and hope it was a good one. My boyfriend did it actually, I was a scaredy cat and actually I was the one who didn’t want to go to the dentist but my bf insisted. (Thank you bf! For making me go, for choosing a dentist, for booking the appointment… LOL sorry I’m such a baby.)

So I went to the dentist which was just right across my office, and they took a look at my teeth. The dentist starting doing the “Tsk tsk tsk” noises and right away I started feeling guilty. That’s how I always feel when at the dentist. That’s another reason I hate going to the dentist.

It’s like, HEY, I’m your CUSTOMER! I’m PAYING you to do me a service! Don’t judge me, don’t criticize me and don’t make me feel guilty!!!! Just do your job and be done with it!

Right??? And yet there they go, doing those Tsk Tsk noises and I’m all guilty-faced and mumbling excuses and shit. To a STRANGER at that. WTF?!

Anyway.

So the dentist asks me, what do I want done? And I tell her about my tooth hurting and I need her to fix it. Then she picks up her tools and gives me a cleaning. Umm??? That’s not what I asked for!!!

(It did feel good though.)

After that, I asked her how about my tooth? She says it’s impacted (means there’s no room on my jaw anymore for it so it’s in a really tight space and can’t come out fully and it’s vulnerable to infection; in my case ALREADY infected). She says BOTH my lower wisdom teeth are impacted and have got to go. And I ask her so why not do it. She says she’s not qualified. It’s gotta be done by a DENTAL SURGEON. OK that pretty much scared me, the word “surgeon”. Sounded like a serious operation.

So she tells me I have to get a panoramic xray, which I did at this place called Dentists Incorporated (how generic!) in The Link building across from Landmark shopping mall. Then she says I have to schedule another appointment for the wisdom teeth extraction which will be done by the dental surgeon. Then she says it’s not covered by my insurance. And it costs 6k per tooth at minimum, 10k maximum, it depends on how complicated the surgery will be based on the positioning of my teeth, which the xray will show them. So I was looking at 20k maximum for my wisdom teeth operation. WTF!!! Where was I going to get that money?!?!?

I was so despondent that I immediately complained to my boyfriend and moaned and moaned about my problems. I also complained to my mom and anyone who cared to listen. My mom thank goodness offered to help me pay for the operation if I didn’t have money. But of course it was my last resort. (I still owe her lots of money.)

Gim my knight in shining armor consoled me and said he’d ask around at the hospital where he works, maybe the rates were lower. Meanwhile I also went searching the Internet and found out that I could get better rates (3k-5k range) in a government hospital like the Philippine General Hospital. If I wasn’t iffy about waiting in line with hordes of other people (read: the masses). Oh how low class I really am in actuality (vs how high class I think I am, but only to myself) that I was in the position of considering getting the operation in a public hospital. (I’m not belittling the hospital/doctors because I know doctors who’ve worked at a public hospital are usually the best in the field vs those who only have experience in private hospitals. But the EXPERIENCE is belittling – having to queue up as early as 5am, waiting hours in line to get a consultation, usually there’s no airconditioning so just imagine the heat, the smell of sweat, the crowds… it’s not something you would want to experience.)

So anyway I wasn’t very happy about the idea of going to PGH but it seemed inevitable, unless I wanted to be EVEN MORE indebted to my mother.

UNTIL! Gim came home the following day and told me he can get me the operation at his hospital FOR FREE!!! Because he went and talked to the dentist and she offered her services for free since Gim was a doctor there. It’s a doctor thing. I was ELATED!!! YAYYY!!!! SOOO THANKFUL FOR GIM my lovedilove!

Gim works in a public hospital but since he made a friend, I didn’t have to wait in line or anything. He scheduled an 8am appointment for me, I wouldn’t have to wait and if I did I could wait in his airconditioned doctors’ quarters. Heehee. (I didn’t have to wait but I did visit his quarters and his fellow doctors and I was so SHY.)

All I had to do was buy my own surgical burrs, these drilling bits. I could use the ones the hospital already had but the dentist preferred I buy my own, because it was more hygienic that way. So I did. I went to Centro Dentista in Evangelista St, Quiapo and bought 2 standard sized round burrs and 2 standard sized tapered burrs. YES, Quiapo. And on a Sunday. And it was my first time there. I was terrified of snatchers. I held my bag to myself like an armalite the whole time. I took a taxi there, took a taxi out. I didn’t linger at all just bought the stuff I needed.

And that was all I needed to prepare! Of course I had my boyfriend buy lunch for the dentists’ office as my thank you (a KFC bucket of chicken), and I’m planning to bring back something special from Zamboanga next week after my short visit home, to give to the dentist who performed the wisdom tooth operation on me.

As to my experience on that actual day of extraction… again this one’s too long, another post for that! :)

I just wanted to write about my wisdom tooth extraction. So I don’t forget this experience. …in case I need to get my upper wisdom teeth extracted too.

It will be in stages because I tend to ramble on and on when talking about myself.

In fact, this post was supposed to be entitled “Wisdom Tooth Extraction” then I find myself paragraphs on and I STILL have not got to the point. So I came back to change the title and explain why I changed it. LOL.

Anyway…

So, about a month ago, my right wisdom tooth began to hurt. I had been mainly using the right part of my mouth to chew food, because four months ago I got a porcelain crown placed on one of my left molars and it was hard to chew, because when I put pressure on it, the crown would cut down on my gums and make them bleed. So I shifted chewing to the right part and shortly after a part of my wisdom tooth broke and it got a cavity and ever since it started to hurt.

OK – you get the idea, I haven’t got the greatest set of teeth on me. (My poor future children, I only hope they get their father’s strong set of teeth & eyes but of course my porcelain skin and good looks LOL!!!)

Problem was, I was scared to go to the dentist. I always have been, because my whole childhood has been peppered with these dental visits and the dentist was always doing something painful to me, like extracting my teeth or giving me a root canal or filling my teeth. Even the least painful, the teeth cleaning, made my gums bleed.

Yes I have a record at my dentist’s place and it’s pages long!

My worst experience at my dentist’s was the extraction of one of my right molars. She told me it couldn’t be saved and had to be extracted.

All the other extractions had been pretty easy. And there was hardly any recovery time. But I didn’t realize that a permanent tooth extraction was going to HURT LIKE HELL and LEAVE A GODDAM HOLE IN MY JAW that would take MONTHS to HEAL!!!!

Yeah. She never told me that.

The extraction part was horrible. It seemed like she was sawing out my gums for the longest time, then during the extraction part, a nurse was holding my head down while my dentist kept pulling and pulling at my tooth, left and right, pulling and pulling for what seemed like an hour almost!!!

At that very moment, I remember thinking, I am the earth, there is a building on me, and this must be how it feels like when a building is pulled from the earth. It’s so heavy and so built into the earth that pulling it results in an earthquake. Yes, I felt like there was an earthquake in my mouth.

Never mind that my logic did not make any sense. At the time I didn’t know that buildings didn’t get cleanly extracted from the earth, that they were instead imploded from within. (I would learn that later on, after watching videos of 9/11.)

SO YEAH, the extraction part hurt. Not to mention the recovery part. My dentist had left a gaping hole in my jaw and it would be several months before the hole closed up, which meant months of bits of food getting stuck in the hole, me not knowing how to remove it because I was afraid to touch the wound with my tongue, and sometimes swishing water around my mouth wouldn’t help. Sometimes I had to twist my head upside down AND swish water around my mouth. YEAH. It was horrible.

I am only glad that I can no longer remember the time I got a root canal. I remember it hurt SO BAD, I think even worse than the permanent tooth extraction. But only during the procedure. There was no wound after, so no healing needed.

I think my brain has blocked off that part of my life from my memories since it hurt too much.

I’m very sensitive, so I get hurt easily, so I think that’s why my memory is really bad. LOL!!!

Anyway… I think I need to make another post for the wisdom tooth extraction part. This post just established the fact that I HATE GOING TO THE DENTIST.