1 wisdom tooth = 3kg

If there’s one thing that I could choose not to have, that will be wisdom tooth.

Going to the dentist is never fun. Never gonna understand why would anyone aspire to be a dentist either.

 What’s so interesting to look into other people’s mouth to dig here drill there?? Imagine seeing so many rotten cavities, bloody mouths every day, still got appetite to eat??

Omg..

If you say it’s because of the money then I can understand la haha…

Dentist easily earned $800 from my recent extraction surgery which lasted 30mins max, and he attended to 3 other patients during that 30mins.. That’s crazily productive right? (:

So I had 2 bottom wisdom teeth that grew inside the gum, couldn’t be seen without X-ray. So it was a lot harder to clean them and hence prone to infections.  And both of them were apparently lazy bums cos they both chose to grow lying down (as in horizontally).

Luckily I only got 2 bottom ones, not a whole set of 4 haha..

I got the left one extracted in JC cos that one kept getting infected.

So traumatized from that surgery omg..

You thinking I’m saying that only because I’m a wussy right?

I AM a wussy.. LOL

But you just see the process:

1)      Local anesthesia jabs first

Then the doctor covered my eyes with a mask lol.

2)      Cut my gum open

3)      Removing (drilling/buffing) part of my jaw bone, to make space for the tooth to come out

4)      Drilling the tooth into half

5)      Extraction

All those while I could hear my bone/ tooth being moved/dug at, cos it was actually very close to the ear. So I was still chatting with the dentist happily, telling him I could hear crack crack crack, asking him what he was doing. My mum who was watching beside me kept asking me shut up. HAHA. But there was nothing scary yet cos I could only hear but couldn’t feel a thing.

Then he asked me to SIT UP AND REST after he got the tooth out finally.

But my mum was asking wouldn’t the anesthesia wear off if I waited for too long.

But dentist said it didn’t matter…

Come to think of it now, the dentist could have meant HE wanted to rest his hands from so much drilling.

So I sat up for probably 2 or 3 mins and was told to lie down again for the last part (horror began).

6)      Stitching the gum back

Omg.. The instant he poked into my gums I almost yelled.

LOL.. Cos my mum was right, the anesthesia was wearing off.. Cos by then it could have been almost 1 hr since the jab.. Either that, if not then he was too stingy on the jab dosage.

That bloody dentist still continue stitching as I started to start weep. He still so mean, said “aiyo it’s almost over already then you rmb to cry ahh…”

I THOUGHT THAT’S HIS FAULT

Who ask me TO SIT UP AND REST??

WHERE GOT PEOPLE SIT UP AND REST IN SURGERY ONE???!!

knn...

I swear I would have fly kicked him if there wasn’t thread and needle in my mouth then.

My mum stopped him and requested he gave me another jab.

7)      So more local anesthesia jabs

8)      Then continue stitching

If you think that was all, nightmare was over?

Wrong! Haha.. Cos it has just began! >.<

Bleeding lasted for 3 days,

Swelling, bruising, lasted for more than a week.

Swelled so bad I looked like a got K.O by a professional boxer.. 

My entire left cheek extending down my neck was literally purple and I rmb the pain was really bad I had to spam pain killers like crazy. Couldn’t even open my mouth and had a hard time during meal time.

And did I mention? One of the stitching came off the very next day!!!

WTF..

I went through so much pain to have it drop out the next day.

Took 4 or 5 days off from school and I returned when the bruising became lighter, less purple.

Just when I thought the bruise was fading away, one of my classmates told me ‘ehh you’ve got something on your face’ so I went to the washroom to check.. Hahaha.. It was so funny…

The bruise decided to turn into a bright orangy-yellow.. LOL

So embarrassed I had to walk around covering my yellow and swollen face all day.

So because of that horrible experience, I was really reluctant to get the other right side one extracted. So that meant I had to endure with more infections.

And don’t be mistaken that I keep getting infections cos I don’t brush my teeth.. I do! It’s just really hard to reach in between your furthest gum and the tooth in front. If I managed to reach it with my toothbrush I would have gagged already.

Sometimes when the tooth is perfectly fine but I try too hard and clean it will those toothpick with a brush on one end, I end up with an infection the very next day.

AIYA ALL IN ALL, THAT TOOTH WAS LIKE AN ATTENTION SEEKING SPOILED BRAT LA.

As the tooth grew more over the years it started pushing against the molar in front of it, since it was growing horizontally.

At first I couldn’t see the wisdom tooth but the molar in front got more and more crooked as it got squeezed against.

Then when there was no more space to grow, it decided to burst my gum open, so my gum ‘CRACKED OPEN HALFWAY’.

Had to bear with the pain every single day and worse still, the cracked open gum was even more prone to trapping food and of cos infection la.

So it was then the time I had to decide:

Go through that similar traumatizing surgery again or continue to deal with the increasing pain/ infection.

I chose the latter after I got yet another infection.

NIGHTMARE AGAIN.            

               

I got antibiotics first to help reduce the swelling, and then arranged for surgery on 19 march.

But this time it was a different dentist, though I went to the same Dental clinic. It’s the NTUC Denticare, Choa Chu Kang branch.

This time, it was an Indian dentist (the previous time was Chinese, he only worked there on Sundays) and I could just tell he was so much more skilled and experienced than the previous one lo…

He gave me jabs first, this time it was far more number of jabs in different areas around the tooth, I think I even got one under my tongue. Then he took my X-ray and then I was asked to wait outside, while he attended to other patients.

My mum was freaking out again.. Actually I was too.. What if the  anesthesia wears off again??

ALAMAK.

But it was finally my turn. This time there was an intern beside him so throughout the surgery I could hear him explain what he was doing to the intern. So good, I didn’t have to ask.

This tooth was much more complex than the previous one cos it’s very close to some inferior something nerve. If that nerve gets damaged, can lead to loss of sensation to half of the jaw and lip so he had to be careful and slow with extraction.

This time round, the dentist didn’t drill away any of my jaw bone and he didn’t cut the tooth into half like the previous time. He just cut open my gum along the crack that was already there and took the top part of the tooth out first. I couldn’t see but my mum said he took it out really fast. Then the rest of the time he was digging for other remaining pieces near the root.

I must admit, this time, I was very tense and nervous compared to the other time, cos I could feel the pain and pressure, I kept saying ouhhh thorough.. But wasn’t as bad as the stitching pain from the previous time.

He said I could be feeling some pain, DUH obviously? He was digging so damn hard!!

Then he asked if I was still alright. I nodded while continuing with my ahhs and ouchhs.. >.<

IRONY HAHA.

So he told me to raise my hand if I wanted him to stop, and otherwise not to move cos he was very close to that something nerve.

I was super uncomfortable and super tensed cos he was putting a lot of pressure on both my tooth and MY EYE.

His wrist was pressing against my eyeball, but he kept reminding me not to move so I stayed very very still.

I rather have a temporary bruise on my eye than to have half a lip with no sensation.

But overall, this second time was SOOOO much better than the first, cos another 10mins later, I was done. 

I was still in disbelief when it was done, the previous time it took soooo damn long..

I kept asking ‘really?’ and I was trying to explain to him that the other time I took almost an hour long. But I doubt he could understand me cos I was talking while he stitched my gum up.

He said ‘ya really, see your extraction was so complex but I did it so quickly. Must treat me to dinner ok?

And must be expensive dinner.’ LOL?

What? Cost another $800? Haha.. Just joking.

This time I only experienced just a little bit of swelling, but absolutely no bruising and no pain thereafter, could have been because there was nothing done to my jaw bone.

But I had more bleeding this time. I had my bed sheet, pillow, blanket all stained with blood. I had to bite on gauze while sleeping for the first few nights so I couldn’t close my mouth and could only sleep on one side cos the other side of my face was swollen.

So I drooled blood..

EWWW..

Ok so this time I had a hard time eating too. I was on a fluid and semi-solid diet for more than a week. I ate porridge for almost every meal. If it wasn’t porridge then it was either soggy hor fun or kway teow soup that’s soaked in soup for very long.

At first I thought I could lose some weight from my fluid diet but FAT HOPE.

Not only didn’t I lose any weight, I packed on 3kg.

I swear I wasn’t eating much!!!

But when I did eat, it was all carbs, only carbs. And those things I ate are all blend and tasteless by its own so they must have been very high in sodium, seasoning too to taste good.

So don’t think that it’s not sensible to reduce carbs intake when you want to lose weight.

Cos carbs make you fat REALLY REALLY FAST, and carbs itself causes water retention too.

Because I was overweight even before that, my legs tend to swell but only after intense running or sitting down for too long eg. if I sit in the library for the entire day.

So my high in carbs and sodium diet for that one week plus made my legs swell really bad.

I had to return to school for revision lectures that lasted 6hrs and had to go to the toilet to raise and rub on my poor legs during breaktime cos they hurt badly and was probably harder than preserved meat. It felt like my skin was being stretched really hard and was gonna burst/tear soon.

So after lecture that day I went to BPP Watsons ASAP and got a pair of the Scholl compression stocking.

And did the stockings work?

Of cause it did! I wore it on for 2hrs and swelling reduced significantly.

Very pleased with it indeed.

So since it worked so well, I thought why not just sleep in them then? So I did, and the next day my legs felt really good, back to normal again.

But then when I went to brush my teeth, I realize I couldn’t grip my toothbrush.

CAUSE MY HANDS WERE SWOLLEN.

So the water retention travelled from my legs to my hands..

FML BIG TIME RIGHT?

So did I get some compression gloves?

HELL NO LA!

Later the water travel to my brain how.. I don’t want waterlogged brain.

So what I did was started to cut down a bit on carbs on sodium, and it wasn’t difficult cos I recovered from the tooth things already then. I started to replace some of my snacks with tomatoes, but still had a bit of my daily potato chips fix.

I was a sucker for chips. I could down a big pack of cheddar ruffles in one day, if I wanted to, and that’s probably only my afternoon tea time snack.

Just that simple change gave amazing results lei. I hadn’t returned back to gyming yet then so I couldn’t lose water through perspiration.

But I managed to pee all that water out.

I’m not exaggerating I peed more than 10 times on the first day and I’m not talking about a wee wee, it was waterfall wee each time.

So you get the point la.. And I managed to wee all that water out within a few days.

I know I’m really gross. I’m sorry! >.<

So from that wisdom tooth I actually learnt quite a lot right..

Haha.. TTYL muack!