So I had a large tooth pulled the other day. I chose extraction for a number of reasons, one of which being the cost over a root filling. It was pretty brutal really, but I survived.
The rather large hole left behind seems to have sealed over now, but the whole area (gum and jaw) is still pretty tender. I've been sucking some soft food, and drinking luke warm tea, but just wondering how long before it's all back to normal?
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It usually feels ok after a month or so. After 3 months you'll forget that it ever happened. I think it takes a year or so for the hole to fill with new bone.
The important thing is to use a lukewarm salt water mouth wash to aid healing and prevent infection.
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"After 3 months you'll forget that it ever happened"
Ha, after the pulling and tugging, the sensation of metal instruments on teeth, and the snapping of whatever joins the tooth to the jaw, I'm not sure I'll ever forget it. But I understand what you mean though!
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You have my sympathy - I'm not a good patient and am not anticipating the point when a temporary filling on a nearly ex-molar of mine gives up and extraction is inevitable.
I can second the tip about salt water, though. I suggest also eating whatever you can manage, chewing mostly on the other side of your mouth. Your jaw needs exercise to help it recover, just like the rest of the body.
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Fri 31 May 13 at 11:13
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I've had a 4 tooth-span bridge for about 27 years, blimmin thing fell out when I was giving some GBH to a packet of Macadamia nutz.
I put up with it for about a month although I obviously couldn't eat on that side, plus I have a dodgy toof on the other side!
It felt really strange being a gummy, I did buy some proper dental cement to stick the critter back in.
But my 6 monthly dental appointment was due, he stuck it back in, but said he doubts whether it'll last for another 27 years, to which I replied, neither will I.
£18 it cost me, and that included the check up and de-scale = good ole NHS!
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During extractions I close my eyes and try to meditate to reduce the psychological impact
It does not work.
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My dad (73 years old) went for a crown the other week. £200 on the NHS, said the lady, or £800 private. What's the difference, he asks. The private one is better quality and will probably last 25 years, the NHS one maybe 10 years. Dad asks he he can have a cheaper one that will only last 5 years, 'cos he doesn't want to die with a mouth full of expensive crowns.
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It's the bleeding afterwards that worries me. You basically have this gaping hole in your jaw with a lump of cotton wool clamped between the jaws to stem the flow. It's not enough :)
Keep your hands off the ginger nuts for a while.
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Heard about these people on Radio 4 a few days back. Serious money to be saved if you need major dental work. You can either go to Budapest or see the Hungarian dentist in London.
www.smilesavershungary.co.uk/?gclid=CPqDyp-twLcCFTMQtAodhWwAZQ
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I guess some of you youngsters have never had a tooth out. Yes, it's very nasty. Even when it happens again and again you don't really get used to it.
I know this from experience having been born with uneven, crowded teeth long before the days of automatic orthodontic treatment and obsessive oral hygiene. Can't remember when I lost the last one or two, but it was a long time ago. And before that most of the molars had lumps of mercury amalgam weighing more than the tooth, or discreet gold crowns.
Only once had a general anaesthetic, for extraction of two impacted wisdom teeth. It was utterly hideous, and the dental team seemed traumatized too when I came round, although they limited their comment to slight sarcasm. Doubtless I had been lashing out and screaming obscenities.
Had a lower front incisor once that became very loose. Fiddling with it one day as you do, I lifted it easily and painlessly out of the socket. It had just been sitting there. Smoking, being slobbish and having childhood dental treatment from a succession of civilian and naval dentists are not good for the gnashers.
I sometimes wonder whether years of simmering gum disease and frequent tooth infections, not to mention all the mercury, could have robbed me of 100 or so IQ points and affected my mental stability. Something has anyway they often tell me.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 31 May 13 at 14:27
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It was the first tooth I've ever had out as an adult. I had lots out as a youngster due to overcrowding, but in those days I had the 'gas'. I still remember coming round in the 'sick' room feeling terrible, and with a mouth full of holes and blood.
It needed a root filling really, but it was very expensive, and after trouble with a previous root filling I really couldn't be bothered. It's not like a missing tooth is going to ruin my good looks anyway.
My nephew has just had braces fitted (as everyone seems to these days), for the not inconsiderable cost of £2500.
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>> the dental team seemed traumatized too when I came round, although they limited their comment to slight sarcasm. Doubtless I had been lashing out and screaming obscenities.
I was butchered by a dentist in my twenties. He had several goes at pulling a tooth and it was hurting like hell. He finally snapped it off, involuntarily my leg came up into his nuts and his assistant got my arm across her chest. I ended up in hospital getting it sorted by proper professionals.
I have unpleasant memories of treatment under gas and opt for removal and dentures rather than repetitive treatment.
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>> and the dental team seemed traumatized too when I came round, although they
>> limited their comment to slight sarcasm. Doubtless I had been lashing out and screaming obscenities.
The Indian dentist who extracted my first tooth gave me the frights. I'm pretty sure he was struggling halfway through the procedure when he started grunting and panting with the effort of it all, then started using my lip as a place to lever against while he tried to pull the tooth out. It was when he hissed to the nurse "shut the door" (I kid you not) that I started to really worry, as other trembling patients were peering in around the wall. I came out the other side OK though, somehow.
>> Had a lower front incisor once that became very loose. Fiddling with it one day
>> as you do, I lifted it easily and painlessly out of the socket. It had
>> just been sitting there. Smoking, being slobbish and having childhood dental treatment from a succession
>> of civilian and naval dentists are not good for the gnashers.
Nope. I work colleague of mine who has since retired was a big smoker, and also had weak bones. About six foot two and as thin as a rake. He was chewing on a cheese roll one day when he had a sudden taste of rotten meat, and subsequently crunched on a tooth that had fallen out. Yuck.
He always left a Granny Smiths apple next to his chair that never got eaten. Presumably his wife had forced him to eat it as part of his fruit and veg, but I just had visions of a whole set of his gnashers embedded in the fruit on his first bite.
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>> Keep your hands off the ginger nuts for a while.
>>
As the blonde was told by Prince Harry's PR man.
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Pah! We should just admit that we're all wimps nowadays.
As a youngster in the 1950s, I have a recollection of both my mum and dad having all their teeth extracted to be replaced by dentures; it seemed to be the fashion then. They were anaesthetised with 'gas', then left to get on with it - aspirin being the painkiller of choice. I remember being very upset at seeing my mum, sitting in an armchair, looking terribly knocked about, and spitting blood into a half-filled bucket.
Ah - the good old days!
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I have an old Caribbean friend, ten years older than me and not too well they tell me, who still has his own teeth but has had most of the visible ones decorated with a variety of elaborate gold caps and the odd gemstone. It would look a bit flash on me but it suits old Rocky down to the ground, what with his necklaces, bracelets and even a sort of gold collar thing.
Footnote for Humph: he's got some pretty nice shoes too, you betcha.
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One of my closest friends is of Afro-Caribbean extraction. ( well, he says he is and his appearance would confirm that but in personality he's a lot more of a Yorkshireman than a Jamaican ) He's the only guy I've ever met who can make a big floppy Norman Wisdom type flat cap look stylish.
We have decided that one day, when we're old, we'll go with a third friend who is keen on DIY, and live in Jamaica. My pal will swop his flat cap for a straw Fedora and a singlet and run the rum bar, I'll run the dive school and rent out a couple of jet skis ( you can wear a singlet and straw hat for that too except when actually diving ) and my other buddy who knows about electric drills and stuff will fix everything when it breaks ( while wearing a singlet and straw hat )
So far, we haven't come up with a visible flaw in the plan. Singlets and straw hats are cheap enough. Just wives to convince now. Shouldn't be an issue...
:-)
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"One of my closest friends is of Afro-Caribbean extraction."
You're stretching it a bit now, Humph, as far as I can see, the only relevance here to the original post is the word 'extraction' ;-)
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Yes indeed, sorry about that. I blame Lud though really. He leads me astray. Perhaps I was feeling left out. I still have all my own teeth.
:-)
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I had two fillings this morning, 45 minutes with the dentist prodding and poking about in my mouth while I reclined in one of those ergonomic chairs. The trouble is I don't have an ergonomic back and it was killing me by the time she'd finished. The only thing that made it bearable was I could feel her left breast resting on my arm when she was bending over me.
BBD would have flipped, especially as she's Polish.
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".....one of those ergonomic chairs. The trouble is I don't have an ergonomic back......."
I wonder if they tested those wretched things on real people or crash test dummies. I've got arthritis in the lower spine and, after half an hour's root canal stuff, my back hurts more than any dental digging. And, alas, my dentist is a bloke - so no bodily anaesthetic!
Last edited by: Haywain on Fri 31 May 13 at 16:20
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Out of the original 32 teeth I still have 24, and a full jaw-bone of roots. As soon as the tooth-ache gets too bad, I`m in with the long-nosed pliers and snap em off! - 3-4 days later its as if nothing happened and I`m saving a fortune! - never seen a mouth-butcher since the School one when I was 9, never forgotten it - never will! and never again!!
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I couldn't do a dentist job - all that poking around in peoples gobs. I know there's benefits, like good salary, looking down womens' blouses, and employing a fit nurse, but even so.
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>>Out of the original 32 teeth I still have 24, and a full jaw-bone of roots
Dentists were crooks 'back then' when we were kyds (some still are!) my dog is 13,
never had a filling/root canal/extraction, still has all his own chompers.
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A friend of my gran I remember was afraid of the dentist. So when he had problems with teeth (and they had a few)... they'd eventually pull them out themselves. To avoid going to the dentist and being subjected to pain and all that... Not sure of the logic.
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I am glad when I needed my wisdom teeth removed that (a) I had the removed before they caused pain and (b) had all four done at the same time in hospital under a general anaesthetic.
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I pull my own out.....mainly to clean them. I've got my lower ones but the tops are a government set.
Fond memories of school trips to the dental hospital........gas, chipped white tiles and blood .
I'm allergic to general anaesthetics........................they make me fall asleep !
Ted
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A visit to the dentist these days is far less traumatic than it used to be. Whatever they use to deaden the gum takes effect more quickly, actually works and doesn't leave you with that horrible rubber lips feeling for the best part of the day afterwards. I'm from a generation who were never taught to look after our teeth at an early age and suffered fillings and extractions for years because of that. Thankfully all the smilers at the front are still intact, but the back of the mouth looks like a bad day at the Somme.
Worst experience was as a schoolboy, having to go to the London Hospital Dental Unit to be gassed to sleep while they extracted a tooth from a badly abscessed gum. Left me sick as a dog for a couple of days after.
Last edited by: Robin Regal on Fri 31 May 13 at 18:03
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My dentist at the time wouldn't do gas, so I had my impacted wisdom teeth, tow on each side, taken out at the dental teaching hospital in Leicester Square. They did it for nothing, but they tried to get me to have local anaesthetic because so many of their patients were there for the same reason I was - to get the nitrous oxide.
You didn't stay in although they made you lie down for half an hour to recover. I suppose the team must have comprised one or two senior teaching dentists and some experienced nursing people, along with a gaggle of nervous, inept students. There were plenty of them.
Don't drive if you're still feeling groggy, they said as I left. My Light 15 was in the multi-storey in Coventry Street, or perhaps just parked. You still could in those days.
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>> Don't drive if you're still feeling groggy, they said as I left. My Light 15
>> was in the multi-storey in Coventry Street, or perhaps just parked. You still could in
>> those days.
>>
I always wanted a light fifteen traction avant: were they as good as they were made out to be?
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>> traction avant: were they as good as they were made out to be?
They were very good, comfortable, safe and long-legged. Three-speed gearbox left a bit to be desired. Good Citroen brakes, big finned front drums, and predictable handling with a good supple ride.
Mine was a rusty lhd one bought from two Aussie girls in West Kensington for 60 quid. I loved it dearly but got through it definitively in about four months. Although only 14 years old (1948) it was a bit long in the tooth for flat-out everywhere, and the engine succumbed (piston rings almost certainly - anyway exhaust puffing hard out of the oil filler cap. What a little brute I was).
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 1 Jun 13 at 19:20
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Well I put a photo of my back on FB! #oldenoughtoknowbetter
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>> Out of the original 32 teeth I still have 24, and a full jaw-bone of
>> roots. As soon as the tooth-ache gets too bad, I`m in with the long-nosed pliers
>> and snap em off! - 3-4 days later its as if nothing happened and I`m
>> saving a fortune! - never seen a mouth-butcher since the School one when I was
>> 9, never forgotten it - never will! and never again!!
>>
Think I'm going to be sick. Still have all my teeth, bar one molar that I broke falling off a horse some years ago.
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>> suits old Rocky down to the ground, what with his necklaces, bracelets and even a sort of gold collar thing.
What I forgot to mention was the two knuckledusters of chunky, square-edged gold and jewel rings.
I once saw in astonishing close-up - indeed I was slightly jostled in the incident - a near-tragedy in the run-up to carnival. The band run by my late buddy Larry and featuring Rocky as King was in the sort of rehearsal they do at Alexandra Palace each year. The band had a good place under the organ and bits of costume were balanced everywhere on chairs.
An innocent English bloke blundered in through the doors behind the band and knocked one of the bits of costume to the ground, without damage. But such is the competitive tension at carnival, everyone paranoid and wound up, that Larry and Rocky converged furiously on the guy and launched simultaneous attacks on him as I tried to explain to them that I'd seen him coming in and it was just a blunder, not aggressive in any way. They didn't hear me in the clamour and Rocky's lethal-looking high punch was deflected by a very sound young fellow in the same band, an in-law of Larry's, in the nick of time, as I say right before my eyes. Phew! The English guy was well flustered and a bit scared.
I've never been to carnival in Trinidad but I'm told that rivalry there can run to gang rumbles with knives, guns and deaths. Peace and Love alone won't make a real spectacle of course as any fule kno.
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However ghastly extraction after injection may be (and I've had a few) nothing beats nitrous oxide gas administered through a thing like a perished wartime gas mask for sheer horror.
In my childhood I had several. Apart from the revolting rubbery smell, the process didn't actually work for me, apart from rendering me incaple of moving or shouting. But I heard everything the dentist and his assistant were saying, including those awful words "he's under now" followed by agonising wrenching pain and a noise like a tree being bulldozed.
But then my grandfather said I was soft. He remembered extractions in about 1900 with no anaesthetic at all. He said you only went to the dentist if you were already in agony in the first place.
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>> But then my grandfather said I was soft. He remembered extractions in about 1900 with
>> no anaesthetic at all. He said you only went to the dentist if you were
>> already in agony in the first place.
>>
My niece had an abscess and her dentist didn't do gas. He offered her antibiotics but she'd already been on them and they did nothing. She had been in pain for nearly a week and she told him to just go ahead and pull the thing out. She reckons it was the most agonising few moments of her life, but at least it was over. She spent the journey home with her mouth open trying to photograph the wound on her mobile.
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>> To put on facebook? :)
>>
It wouldn't surprise me in the least.
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Over the past 30 yrs or so, I've found an excellent bit of pain relief for toothache and abcesses.
It's an Austrian rum called Stroh. Three strengths available 40/60/80%. Obviously the 80 is the stuff to get. Swill a drop round the hurty bit and dance around for a few seconds. All is then anaesthetised.
I've not seen it in the offys over here, I got our last bottle in Porto Pollensa on Majorca. It is available on Amazon by mail order, though.
www.amazon.co.uk/Stroh-80-rum-80-50cl/dp/B005UXPPIO
Firewater ! Costly but you can drink it as well !
Ted
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I had an upper wisdom tooth out 3 weeks ago. It was through the gum and decaying.
I had wound myself up thinking that it was going to hurt like hell from hearing stories.
The surgeon gave me a local. Pulled it out, and I must say, I didn't feel a thing. It bled for a further 24 hrs and was advised not to spit out this mess but swallow it.
Ate on the opposite side for about a week.
Salt water rinse for a week afterwards, morning/night and after meals.
Still no discomfort.
The hole has healed over, but as said bone takes a while to fill.
Having never had a tooth out as an adult I was surprised that I felt no pain either during the extraction or afterwards. It probably is not the norm as I read some pain can exist following the extraction.
I was just glad to get rid of the pain from the hole that caused it to be pulled.
Follow the guidelines you were given Dave, and things will be okay. Pop the odd painkiller if its a nuisance.
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"It bled for a further 24 hrs and was advised not to spit out this mess but swallow it."
What's that all about then? [and don't even go there :)]
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>> "It bled for a further 24 hrs and was advised not to spit out this
>> mess but swallow it."
>>
>> What's that all about then? [and don't even go there :)]
>>
Extra protein?
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Yes very good. ;-)
Apparently you shouldn't gob out the mixture of blood and spit to encourage the bleeding to stop. How this helps I don't know. You can't help ejecting it as it builds up. But persevere, it does stop.
I didn't experience dry socket either.
Last edited by: Mr. Ecs on Sat 1 Jun 13 at 12:06
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>> .................. but just wondering how long before it's all back to normal?
>>
www.webmd.boots.com/oral-health/guide/tooth-extraction?page=2
"The initial healing period usually takes about one to two weeks. New bone and gum tissue will grow into the gap."
In my experience it can be several months before "it's all back to normal".
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>> So I had a large tooth pulled the other day.
I hope you don't get "dry socket". www.webmd.com/oral-health/guide/dry-socket-symptoms-and-treatment
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They had to cut my gum to get the tooth out pulling and bits breaking off came out in 3x bits but once out and mopped up the blood & salt water drinks it healed up fine.
The teeth at the side were a little sensetive to begin with afterwards.
After a few months it was fine now some 12 months later no bother.
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Had a couple of extractions which were fine. Also root canal fillings, one of which was regularly (like every 9 - 12 months) getting infected. Was sent to the dental clinic at the local hospital where eventually they opened up the gum from the side and cleaned everything out, including the bad stuff that was causing it to flare up, and stitched it up again. While I absolutely dislike the thought and action of going to the dentist, none of these experiences was actually that bad.
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>> none of these experiences was actually that bad.
I suppose you have to ask yourself "Do I feel lucky?"
... to be around in modern times with modern dental practices when you could be living out a miserable existence in say the medieval period with all that it entails. I think I know where I'd rather be.
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My last long-term dentist near the Grove was a Geordie, a nice cat who had been in the RAF in North Africa and knew Algeria, something we had a bit in common. He listened to the test match while he worked. Herself didn't like the taste of his fingers - he was a cigarette smoker - and found him a bit rough and abrupt.
But I thought him OK. He never left any infection under a filling and didn't hurt one more than necessary. He seemed a bit cavalier with my yellowing fangs as he pulled them one by one, but really he was just being realistic.
He was away once and his locum was a startlingly winsome young small blonde woman. Wearing a cute little white yashmak over her cute little nose, she would gaze with melting but alive eyes of some bluey greeny colour I can't remember exactly at her pretty little rubber-gloved hands doing their stuff, gouging and hammering at the gnashers. One was so lost in her beauty that one hardly felt a thing.
She did two fillings which both got infected immediately. Heigh-ho... C'est la vie.
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After a tooth extraction - corax
