Wisdom Teeth - The Worst Tooth Pain I’ve Ever Been In

Wisdom Teeth - everyone has them! Unless of course you don’t have them, which can happen in some cases. To be honest, I don’t really know what wisdom teeth are, how they form, or what they’re for, but I know that a lot of people have to get them out in their teenage years or early adult life. For me, I had to get mine out at the start of the summer before I began my internship. I was told I had 4 wisdom teeth in total that needed to come out and that they could do it all in one morning. I have heard lots of stories about people getting their wisdom teeth out, including from everyone in my family. It’s a little different from person to person, but for the most part it is generally not the end of the world for most people. Dry sockets were my ultimate fear, however, as I had heard many horror stories about them and how badly they hurt. I remember hearing that tooth pain is some of the most severe pain because the nerve endings don’t need to travel through the spinal cord to get to the brain - they have direct access I guess.

I got my wisdom teeth taken out May 4th, 2021, which also happens to be Star Wars Day - “May the 4th be with you”. Anyways, my mom and I drove down to a dental surgeon in Holland MI and I got all checked in. After some last minute xrays, the dentist's assistant pointed out something strange; I actually had 6 wisdom teeth, not 4. Somehow this was missed in my first round of x rays. The dental surgeon said it’s not that big of an issue and that they could remove the other 2 free of charge. Interestingly, only 2% of people have more than 4 wisdom teeth. So I’m pretty much a huge deal. They administered some laughing gas which didn’t really do too much for me while they put the IV in and prepared to put the full blown anesthetic in my arm. I was kind of nervous at this point and I remember watching the dental surgeon slowly inject the syringe of anesthetic and asking him if I’m gonna fall asleep soon. That’s the last thing I remember. 

The surgery went well and they woke me up to keep me in the stabilizing room to make sure there were no problems immediately after surgery. I barely remember anything at this point because I was still under a lot of sedation, but I took a few videos of myself and I didn’t appear to be super confused about what was going on. My mom told me later that I was the most put together out of my sisters, so that’s pretty good I guess. 

The recovery process for the holes where my wisdom teeth once were was longer than I expected. I experienced quite a bit of pain the first few days and having to keep the gauze in my mouth was very annoying. After about 4 or 5 days, things started to get better. That is until I got an infection on my left side which caused my jaw and mouth to continue bruising and swelling. This is some of the worst pain that I have ever been in.