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.

Updates (Or Lack Thereof)

Sooooo. Not a single post for 3 days. So much for telling Pen that I want to be a famous blogger. Hahaha! Dreams. Yeah, they're free.

Anyway, so why wasn't I able to write? It's because of my impacted tooth. (See? I told you it's taking over my life.) For the past few days, it has become so insufferably painful that I failed to concentrate on thinking about a good topic for a post. Heck, about anything!

The super mega hyper intense pain came about a couple of days ago. It was just so severe that the 500 mg tablet of mefenamic acid didn't even take effect! I was able to accomplish things at work, but I came home overly uncomfortable because of the toothache, wanting to be slammed in the face by a sledgehammer instead.

Yesterday, I felt a lot better. The mefenamic acid finally worked, but I decided not to report to the office. I thought I really had to do something about it immediately, so I called a few dentists as soon as I woke up, including Michelle's brother, to solicit opinion.

Following Dr. Renoir's (le brother) advice, I went to SM Southmall to have an x-ray of my teeth taken, which cost P800. (Huhuhu, this is making me bankrupt!) Then, I went to Michelle's house to drop off the x-ray. Soon after, JC showed up, and we eventually went to Alabang Town Center to meet up with Pao. We ate, hung out, ate, did videoke at Timezone, and ate some more. So there, I was busy yesterday, and I got too tired and, at the same time, overjoyed to write a post.

How about today? Less pain than yesterday, but it's still there. And the surgery has been scheduled! The bastard tooth will FINALLY be extracted on Saturday. Yey! How much? Around P8000. Ye... awww. AWWW.

What? You smell something? Something stinks? Yeah. It's my imminent bankruptcy. Huhuhu..... Goodbye Christmas. Goodbye planned trips. No gifts for loved ones. Boo, dentists.

So, any update? Ugh. You're reading it. (Thank you.)

How My Impacted Tooth Is Taking Over My Life

What exactly is an impacted tooth? I hope this photo explains it well so that I won't have to go technical about it:

I think I have a case of a partial eruption, and it's taking over my life. Here's the timeline:

• A couple of months ago, I was complaining about what I believed was a simple toothache. It didn't come as a surprise because my last visit to the dentist was (this is embarrassing) more than 5 years ago. So I thought I just had to get fillings and brush more frequently and all would be well. But nooooo...
• A few weeks after, the pain became more intense. I imagined it to be a cavity or some food debris stuck somewhere and that I really had to see the dentist... and get fillings. So yeah, I was still doting then.

• Three weeks ago, a typhoon caused our building to issue a blackout warning. This led to the suspension of the day's work, so I went home early.
• That night, because a dental clinic was along the way to our village (yes, all this time, there was a clinic nearby), I thought it was about time to pay a visit. I had my teeth checked, and the findings changed my life...
• Well, not really. I was just shocked to learn that I had a serious case of an impacted tooth. It was growing in an abnormal direction and was on impact (get it?) with its neighbor. The dentist told me that it requires extraction via surgery worth P8000.
• She also said that if I just let it be, all of my teeth and jaw will be affected and will eventually necessitate more complicated (and expensive) surgery. Moreover, she said that I need 4 tooth fillings, which costs around an additional P1000.

The scary part? The surgery. The life-threatening part? The price. Nine freakin' THOUSAND pesos?! LORD GOD. So I thought I'd leave it be until someone buys my thighs by the pound.

And now, it haunts me. The pain is taking over my life. Pain scale: 5. That's a high score for a pain that's dealt with daily. It has even spread to the other parts of my mouth, and it scares me that the dreadful consequences might occur all too fast.

It distracts me at work and it adds to the butt pain and hunger pangs I feel on my way home. Sometimes, I just wish to be stabbed with a knife rather than feel my stubborn impacted tooth pushing its older siblings. You know what they say, toothache is one of the worst human pains.

So, do I still consider myself sane despite all these? Probably. Did I change something in my daily routine? Yes, I brushed more frequently. Did I alter my diet? HELL NO.

In fact, for today's pain, I fight it with a pack of nostalgia-inducing jelly candy:

I miss the old Orange Swits packaging.

Note: All Orange Swits photos are mine.