Wisdom Teeth Hints

So I’ve been a little out of it lately…

I had my wisdom teeth taken out. 

Well, 3 outa 4 anyway.  Roots had wrapped around the nerves and there was the possibility of nerve damage…  

If I have the 4^th one taken out, nerve damage and permanent numbness in that quadrant is not a possibility, it’s a given.  :(

(The moral of that story is, have your wisdom teeth out when you’re 18!  Not when you’re in your 50’s!!!)

I hesitated to blog about my “procedure”….
Hey, have you noticed, no one uses the word “operation” anymore?  Everything’s a “procedure”.

Anyway, I’m a sharer, and I just have to share some hints and tips, in case it will help someone else some day!  :)

First of all, they put me out for the procedure.  I highly recommend my oral surgeon and being put out.  They give you a little “hospital margarita” through an IV, and then you wake up and it’s over!

Second of all, as with any procedure involving anesthesia, I always have a few prep pads in my purse or pocket that day.

Prep pads?  Yeah, they are like wet wipes, only with rubbing alcohol. 

You get a big box of them for $1 at Wal-Mart, so it’s very cheap insurance!

You see, with one of my other surgeries, I was being prepped to go home, and the nurse told me to get up and get ready, and I was like, “I have to sit down, I have to sit down.”  I guess I was going to get sick.

But he whipped open a prep pad and said, “here, sniff this” (like smelling salts), and it took away the sensation / nausea.

I tell people this and no one has ever heard about it.  Once I even told a nurse that taught other nurses, and she had never heard about it. 

So, please help me spread the word!  LOL

Buy some for anyone you know having surgery!

(BTW, I only needed one prep pad that night around midnight.  I guess I’ll use the rest for hand sanitizers.)  (Good grief, the whole box was one whole dollar and I’m making sure they’re not going to waste.  Welcome to my CrAzY world.)

So that’s an all-purpose surgery hint.

Now, about getting your wisdom teeth out and all. 

There’s kind of a timeline to it. 

The procedure itself was about an hour. 

You have cold-liquids-only for 1 day. 

You have ice packs on your face for 2 days.

You can’t have dairy for 3 days.  (no soda for a week!)

You face the possibility of dry sockets on Day 4.

You have a follow-up appointment in 1 week.

♫ After which you drive to Sonic and have a Cherry Dr Pepper with a straw!  Oh happy day! ♫

You feel pretty much like yourself after 1 week.

And supposedly, you feel totally back-to-normal after 3 weeks.

Oh, and you can eat hard foods like nuts, crackers and chips again after 3 weeks.

So… I lived on coffee milk the first day.  I made it with soy milk.  (remember: no real milk, no yogurt, no ice cream, no straws) 

I used my coffee frappuccino recipe:  ½ c. strong coffee or espresso + ¼ c. sugar + 2 ½ c. soy milk.

The soy milk has protein and was very satisfying, compared to iced tea or jello or popsicles.  And you could mix the soy milk with stuff other than coffee.  A little vanilla extract in it would make a yummy drink, too.  But I love coffee-milk fraps, so how perfect was that!

But on the first day everything was about cold, cold, cold. 
Ice packs on the face and cold stuff in the mouth.  (Just like my chiropractor says:  ice reduces inflammation.)

Rats, I could’ve had my dairy-free ice cream, but I forgot about it.  Oh well.

The second day I think I lived on fraps and mashed potatoes, again made with soy milk.

The third day I had fraps, more mashed potatoes and macaroni & cheese.  (some chewing action required!)

After that, it’s just what you can handle.  I was fortunate and did not develop any dry sockets.  But chewing a lot was very tiring, so I took it easy.  No Flat Tire hamburgers just yet!  Good thing I love mashed potatoes and macaroni & cheese!

(I had to be flexible about the vegan thing for a few days.)

The day before my surgery, I made a lot of iced tea, caff and decaf, and a lot of coffee concentrate.  And at the store, I stocked up on soy milk, and already-prepared mashed potatoes and macaroni & cheese.  That Bob Evans knows what he is doing!  (That’s the brand at Wal-Mart.)

After all, Mr. Man had enough to deal with, without having to cook, too.  As it was, his iPhone timer was going off all the time, it seemed, telling him it was time for more pills or that it was time to change my gauze or whatever.

The only other hint I can think of is, to use wet tea bags lined with gauze to help stop the bleeding during those first few hours.  

They recommended drinking iced tea a lot that first day also, so there must be something magic about tea.  The tea bags did seem to help better than gauze alone.  (If I were to do it again, I would first try gauze soaked with tea.)

Okay guys, I googled that for y’all:  “the tannic acid in tea helps healing blood clots to form (blood clots function similarly to a scab on an open wound)”.

[Why do I think I need to file that tidbit of information away in the recesses of my brain for some future emergency??  Oy.]

Okay, I guess that’s it.  Prep pads, soy milk, tea bags….  Other than that, I guess it’s just time.  Time to recover a bit.  I noticed that I tired very easily that first week.

And I didn’t even go into my studio for over a week -- and that may be a first!  And when I did, I was pretty distracted by how my jaw was still heavy-feeling for me to feel very creative.

So… I’ve been trying to cut myself some slack.  And that’s not easy for me to do.  I really like to feel productive.

So, if I have fewer blog entries for awhile, now you know why.  And if I post a few more photos than yak, you’ll know why.

Thank you, my dear blog friends… 

Now.  Go spread the word about prep pads!  LOL

XOXO,

Lucky Dog
♥