Saturday, November 13, 2010

The Impacted Tooth Surgery

(Warning for the squeamish: graphic images ahead)

Woohoo! The bastard is now gone. Forevah! Muahahaha. The little demonic impacted tooth in my mouth that took over my life for weeks has finally been extracted, so I am now emancipated from potential complications like osteosarcoma and rheumatic heart disease (apparently, impacted teeth can cause those if left unremoved). Hurrah hurrah!


My mouth is still affected by the anesthesia as I'm typing this, so half of it is stiff and numb. It's slowly fading away now, but I don't feel the shackles of post-surgery pain yet. So I took the opportunity to blog as a free man. Here's what happened:

Preparation

I ate two fried empanadas, half a plate of palabok, two Kenny Rogers muffins, half a plate of spaghetti, a putopao, some gelatin, a chocolate bar, some cookies, and a banana for breakfast. A very small meal, yes? Hahaha!

Hey, before you judge me, hear out my legit excuse: I ate a lot because I was advised that my next meal might take a while. I just obeyed, okay? Hahaha. I took a bath and brushed my teeth right after to calm my tense mind and appear clean to Dr. Renoir Amba. Then, we took off.

Pre-Surgery


The clinic wasn't hard to find at all. As soon as we got inside, I signed the patient consent form and got oriented. Dr. Renoir then told me and my parents about the impacted tooth. Here were the details:
  • It was a case of mesial impaction and I needed an odontectomy. He showed us photos to scare me illustrate things. He even used a dental camera. So cool.
  • The whole procedure costs P10,000. So not cool.
  • He explained that the human diet (in general, not just mine) is the one to blame for all teeth impactions. There was some history involved, so I shut my ears for a while.
  • Abscess was already present and it had to be drained. (Eeww, pus!)
  • He said some things about nerves and why the impaction hurt so bad. Since it was kind of technical, he compared it to wires and stuff to make it more "understandable". Well, that didn't do. His words just passed right through my ears.
  • The tooth should have been extracted when I was 17 years old. I'm now 22, so it's considered long overdue. To embarrass me further, my mom told the dentist that my negligence was due to my fear of dentists. Bleh.
  • I actually have TWO impacted teeth (WTF?!), but he was going to take only one out. Whew.
Not my x-ray

I got really scared when the details were laid out, but I was also glad at the same time because something was going to be done about it. As the assistant drove my parents away from the scene, Dr. Renoir started.

Surgery

Sorry, no photos of the actual procedure. Bummer.

Anyway, my dentist kicked things off by putting some numbing cream in my mouth and injecting anesthesia around the bastard tooth. Yeah, it killed the soul out of the little demon. I was asked to close my eyes, but I got to see the metal syringe and the laser thingy and the suction tube and the other tools first before I did.



Errr, I don't exactly remember what happened next. The minute I closed my eyes, I got so relaxed that my mind almost dozed off. I also tried to get rid of my nervousness by finding my happy place (which wasn't really a place but a person ♥). It was successful, so I got comfortable from then on. I just fought the sleepiness enough to keep my mouth wide open.

Then, the action began. Dr. Renoir grabbed my jaw and struggled to yank the tooth out. I also heard something like my jaw was being power sawed. Of course, there was no pain, so I was just lying there, swallowing my overly produced saliva, quietly humming to the tune of the instrumental songs coming out of the speakers. My head even tilted and turned side to side as he did whatever he was doing, but since my mind was in a happy "place", it was all cool.


After half an hour, he said he was already wrapping things up. I was like, huh? Hahaha. I didn't feel anything at all! I partly opened my eyes to see what's up, and I saw my dentist pulling a black thread in and out of my mouth. He was stitching! But, I still felt nothing, so... whatever.

When it was all finished (12 stitches), he asked me to gargle. It was the funniest thing ever! Since my mouth was on anesthesia, I didn't have full control of my muscles. So I was like an archerfish shooting out jets of water! HAHAHA! And it happened twice, so the floor got all wet. After a few tries, I was finally able to spit right into sink.


Post-surgery

This was the hardest part. Why? Because it was payment time! Goodbye, 10,000 pesos.

Dr. Renoir's soft-spoken assistant issued the receipts. I was also given a medical certificate and prescription notes for amoxicillin and mefenamic acid. After giving me his final piece of advice, Dr. Renoir bid us farewell and called his next patient.

On our way home, my parents discussed how good Dr. Renoir was and compared him to the nearby dentist. They said that his services were more expensive, but he sounded like he really knew what he was doing. They also got impressed by how fast the surgery was and even planned to refer him to my sister and our neighbors. So there's no bitterness there, I'm sure.

As soon as I got home, I took pictures of my mouth...

The stitches
Scary facial hair

...and the extracted impacted tooth:

Little demon photo #1
Little demon photo #2

For lunch, I just had mushroom soup. SOUP! There was lechong paksiw and kare-kare, but nooooo, I just had soup. Hmpf. But then, I suddenly remembered Dr. Renoir telling me to eat something cold. So, I bought ice cream right away. Oyeah!

Right now, I can say that 80% of the anesthesia has worn off. I'm starting to feel something in my mouth, like the Queen of Pain is already fastening the ball and chain. So, before it goes full blast, I'm gonna sleep and let the healing take its natural course.

P.S. Heads up! I don't think I'll be able to blog for the next 48 hours. My mouth will be so swollen that it's gonna block my sight of the keyboard and the monitor. Loljk

Note: The clinic photo and all actual teeth photos are mine.

7 comments:

  1. Congratulations! I hope your healing process is fast and furious.

    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! I hope nothing goes wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ewww! Ang sakit! Take your meds religously. zimm

    ReplyDelete
  4. just realizing about your long-time-ago-already-done-odontectomy-procedure ...

    I'm sure it's normal already this time around right?

    so how about the other impacted tooth of yours? taken it off already too?

    regards from Jakarta
    (^_^)
    http://truesmiledentalclinic.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  5. @true smile dental clinic:

    Yep! It's okay now. Although it has become a little more sensitive than usual. I haven't had the other impacted tooth extracted yet because the procedure costs a lot. I need to, uhm, "recharge", if you know what I mean. Hehe! Thanks for dropping by!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I just had my odontectomy 2 wizzies on my right side. I am swollen like a balloon now. Throbbing pain once in a while. Nice article. I can fully relate.

    ReplyDelete

Any comment will do. Even spam. Seriously. Loljk

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