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November 10, 2005

My Wisdom Tooth

I had my Wisdom Tooth removed earlier today. Just one that is, strangely enough the other 3 decided not to come out, maybe they thought that inside is probably better than outside and risking the possibility of being extracted out.

Anyhow, it started when I went to see the good Dr. So (my dentist for the past ... oh I don't know must have been since I came to Australia) a few weeks ago. He gave me that sigh and a head shake. "That Wisdom Tooth must come out" he said. Dang .. that almost gave me a heart attack. What wisdom tooth? I didn't realise I have (err had now) any. "What are you sure? I don't know that I have a wisdom tooth!", "Yes you have one, see it's very small at the back of your 2nd molar on your upper right jaw".

Dr So. has this cool tiny dentist specialist camera (that I think he like it a bit too much) and he always use it liberally to take photo inside my mouth, all the time ciding how bad I am in taking care of my own teeth. Anyway with this he can pretty much take photo from any angle inside your mouth and show it directly to an 15" LCD monitor next to the dental chair. The experience of seeing your own teeth from the inside can be either very horrifying or very exhilarating. I think I fall into the later category. It's like seeing a part of your body that you wouldn't have seen it otherwise. Cool :)

So he showed me a picture of the little Wisdom Tooth. I said little because it was pretty small, clinging by the 2nd molar. He said that the tooth is decaying on the back. It's almost impossible to fix it, and beside, even if he did I wouldn't be able to clean it and it will decay again. It has to come out sooner or later. I can wait until it's getting worse and start giving a toothache or I can get it extracted now. I think sooner it's better than later. He assured me that it will be a very minor surgery and I won't be inconvenience for long.

And so I booked a 1 hour appointment for today. The cute assistant (that has been around since the first time I saw Dr. So many many years ago - older now but still cute) gently reminded me yesterday that I have an appointment today. I think that's because I was 1.5 hours late on my last appointment :) That actually worked because I arrived 10 minutes early today, only to wait for 25 minute because Dr. So is running a bit late. While waiting another assistant showed up, much younger but even cuter. Hmmmmm Dr. So certainly know how to hire people :) Anyway I'm not complaining.

A big dude (with a big voice) came out from the surgery thanking Dr. So for his good work, well I'm next. Hopefully he can continue his good work. Oh what was I thinking, he is a very good doctor and I have no doubt on his ability, but still I never had my tooth extracted before and I was fretting about it.

So the cute assistant motioned me to come in and so I went in to the familiar surgery with the familiar classical music playing in the background. "OK .. let's do this", that's the first thing he said. I was set up in the chair like I have been so many times before. But something interesting came out. As soon as I was set up, the assistant put a piece of cloth on top my face (after taking my glasses of) with a hole for the mouth and the nose. What the? After the cloth came a big sun glasses to keep the cloth in place. I couldn't see a damn thing.

"What's this?" I asked the good doctor. "Oh this is to make you calm down". "So I can't see a thing you mean". "Yes". This is not good, I feel claustrophobic already. And the thought of not being able to see anything while listening to that dreadful sound (yes that super high pitched sound of dentist thingo) make me want to piss on my pants. "Err is necessary? I think I'm more nervous if I can't see anything.". He had to think for a while, maybe he wanted to spare me the horror of the tooth extraction, but no way I'm going to be blindfolded when he pull that tooth out from my jaw. "Oh okay, in that case cut a hole for the eye" he instructed the assistant. Phew .... So she cut a hole in the cloth for my eyes, but she must have thought that I have this huge face that the eye section is waay up in my forehead. "Umm this doesn't help", I said. The situation was very comical, I can't really describe it in words but in the end she did it.

The operation itself was very quick and I only use local anaesthetic. Although he did used quite a fair bit of injection around the tooth section. By the time he made his first incision I didn't feel a thing. It's still pretty scary though, I can feel that he's cutting the side of the gum with a little knife but I'm not feeling any pain. And then he worked with a little hammer and started hitting my tooth. By this time I was really curious about what is it that he was doing exactly, but I know better than to ask :)

After a few minutes came the actually extraction. He had to pull, twist, pull, twist and pull again before the tooth came out. It feels really weird. You can almost feel the root of the tooth wiggling inside your gum. I didn't feel anything on the actual moment of the extraction, which kinda dissapointing. I was expecting a pop or something more dramatic. Suddenly he said, "Yep it's done.". What that was it? "It's done?", "Yep all came out nicely, see" he showed me my tooth. It was really small (and bloody), he showed me the back of the tooth where the decay was. It's kinda cool actually.

After a quick instruction of what I should and should not do (don't brush your teeth tonight, don't eath any hard to chew food, don't use that side), he gave me a 15 points instruction of what I should do printed in a piece of paper. He also prescribed me antibiotics for the next few days. I asked for a pain killer and he adamantly refused, saying that I don't really need it. "Just get Panadol or Nurofen if you have to.". Ah well ... can I have Panadeine I asked? Yes you can have that one if you want.

The entire process turned out to be really quick, I think less than 30 minutes overall. After sorting out the payment I quickly went to the chemist to get my prescription and the Panadeine 15. Yep Panadeine 15, I'm not going to risk sleepless night tonight!

Back at home now I am wondering what happened to my other 3 wisdom teeth, I forgot to ask Dr. So why the other 3 didn't come out. Ah well I should consider myself lucky as Nathan had had all 4 taken out not so long ago.

So now that I have a wisdom tooth taken out, does that mean I'm less wise?

Posted by vhadiant at November 10, 2005 10:08 PM

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Comments

Posted by: Nathan at November 11, 2005 06:35 AM

Posted by: Victor Hadianto at November 11, 2005 06:47 AM