My Wisdom (teeth) removed...

They were like my nemesis... giving me suffering and pain every now and then. And every time I decided to confront them, they just went away, which is why they have been haunting me for a long while now. It was until the recent week that I decided to end it once and for all, as they again gave me their best shot at pain. In fact, I dealt with TWO of the problem. Yes-serri! Two of them...

I was talking about my wisdom tooth. I had been troubled by them for years and never had the courage to confront them - by extracting them out. Heard about horrific stories from friends and peers on the aftermath. Some says that there might be side-effects, some says the process was pretty painful, bla bla bla...

Well, I am personally afraid of visiting the dentist, thanks to my traumatic experience when I was in primary school. You see, we had these dental nurses (and fierce ones too!) stationed at our school to perform routine dental checks on all the students, who being kids, has no idea on dental hygiene, even though we do brush our teeth every morning. So overtime, we developed cavities in our tooth and require filling. I can still remember the screeching sound of the drill used to bore the cavity. The pain felt when the drill attacked the cavity, touching nerves in the gum (mind you, no anesthetics used then!). Even now, that thought still sends chill down my spine.

So, after many years, I'm still apprehensive about going to the dentist. But as a grown-up, I do have to confront my inner demon at some point of time in my life. So I decided to give it a shot, and visited my neighborhood dentist, got an appointment in the afternoon. I was pretty nervous when I sat at the clinic, waiting for my turn to go in.

Then, my name was called. "Mr. Lim, it's your turn to see the doctor." the nurse with an arty-farty pair of spectacles called out. As I approached the small room, there behind the "what-I-called-a-hot-seat" or "what-is-commonly-known-as-dentist-chair", was a young dentist, smiling and greeting me. "Hi Mr. Lim, take a seat. What can do for you today?" he said. After taking the "hot-seat", I went on telling him my problem and he listened intently. Then he suggested to do some checks on the teeth, and also take some X-rays.

During the check, he kept chatting with me, telling me what he was doing at the moment, what he's gonna do after that, all with the intent of making me less nervous. Well, I must say, it was pretty effective. I was a little more relaxed than before. Then he told me that I have 3 wisdom teeth, all developing cavities due to the way they are grown (cos food gets trapped inside and it's pretty difficult to clean them with normal brushing) - 1 on the left side and 2 on the right. All 3 of them needs to be removed so as not to cause problems to the rest of the teeth in future. But, he suggested to remove 2 right ones as they were causing pain which I was experiencing then. The one on the left could be removed later. This way, I would be able to eat and drink using the left side while the right recovers after the procedure. I obliged and he went ahead with the procedure.

First was a series of 3 doses of anesthetics to the affected areas in the mouth. Then, he went on to attempt to extract the lower right tooth, with more anesthetics along the way whenever I indicated feeling pain. It took him quite an amount of time, having to saw through the tooth (as it was badly decayed and fragile). But he finally took it out, still chatting with me along the way, and my only way of responding is by hand signal (thumbs up for ok, palms up for pain, etc). It was a moment of relief for me, as the sound of the drill intimidates me (though I am so heavily sedated that I could not feel any pain). He then quickly sewed the wound up with his skillful pair of hands (of course, the nurse helped).

After a short break, he went on with the upper one, which is more challenging as he puts it, cos of the way it was grown. Nevertheless, he tried, and it took longer than the first one, still with sawing, more anesthetics along the way. When it's done, both of us were relieved. For me, it's the ordeal of having to keep my mouth opened while he worked. For him, to be able to completely remove the tooth at one go. The whole process took about slightly more than an hour or so (less the waiting time for the anesthetics to kick in during the 3 doses), but all was well. It also changed my perspective about visiting the dentist.

I got my wife to wait for me at the clinic as my right face was totally numb, and I could not speak properly (I was occasionally drooling with traces of blood from wound, had to keep wiping with tissue paper). The bill all came up to be about two thousand odd dollars! I kinda expected this as the dentist has previously briefed me before proceeding with the procedure. Fortunately, I was able to claim partial of the cost from CPF Medisave.

I also requested to keep the 2 teeth as souvenir. :)

My 2 "wisdom" teeth - lower tooth (right) and upper tooth (left)