Dental Surgery: My Experience
About six months ago, I was playing with my 7-year-old daughter and she accidentally kicked me in the side of the jaw breaking my wisdom teeth on the right side of my face. It hurt initially, but the pain subsided after a few days and I forgot about it for five months. Then, suddenly, the pain came back with a vengeance about three weeks ago, so I chose to get it dealt with and this is my story of dental surgery.
I had been suffering from bad tooth pain for three weeks and it was clear that it wasn’t going to go away of its own accord, so I called up Wichita Family Dental and they got me an appointment the same day, which was a great relief as the past three weeks had been miserable, very little sleep and work was a struggle when every second thought was “ouch”. Time for my first dentist office visit in over 30 years.
I arrive about 15 minutes prior to my appointment, knowing that there would be paperwork to complete as a new patient. I was taken to the back a little after 2:15pm and was asked a whole bunch of questions about the reason for my visit before being taken for a 360° X-Ray scan. Everyone I dealt with was friendly and courteous and as is par for the course, my British accent raised a few questions from staff members.
Dr. Pierson introduced himself and explained that after looking at the X-Ray he’d recommend that the two damaged Wisdom teeth be removed, I agreed. Next up was the dental hygienist who gave me a number of numbing shots before Dr. Pierson returned to start the surgery. Initially, the pain was extreme, so Dr. Pierson injected me with more numbing agent, afterward, the pain was much more manageable.
The surgery was not fun by any stretch of the imagination, however, it was tolerable given the violent procedure of extracting a tooth, lots of prodding, tugging and breaking away of the tooth material, a very disconcerting sound I can tell you. The bottom wisdom tooth was stubborn, I would estimate that Dr. Pierson was working on the tooth for a good 30 minutes. Once the procedure on that tooth was complete, I had a handheld X-Ray in the dentist chair to confirm the whole tooth and nerves were removed.
It was the same procedure for the upper wisdom tooth, however, this was much easier, this tooth only took about 2 – 3 minutes to extract and was much less painful than the extended ordeal of the bottom tooth extraction. I can’t say I’d recommend wisdom tooth removal, but it was not as bad as expected. It’s definitely better than the constant pain of a toothache caused by a broken and infected tooth.
I can certainly recommend Wichita Family Dental, they managed to make me feel at relative ease with their friendly and professional manner. At no point did I doubt their competency to complete the work to the highest standards and was kept informed of the costs at all stages of my experience. Now we come to the cost, as my dental coverage had lapsed due to circumstances, it came to $1,230 and some change.
It’s money that I could have done without spending at this time, but I could not continue to live with the pain, and it went on a credit card, so I can pay off the balance over time to blunt the financial trauma.
I was given a script for Hydrocodone and Amoxicillin to help with the pain and infection, which thankfully were not very expensive, less than $9 each. I did wake up at about 4am with massive pain on the right side of my face, my face had swollen massively, so I took a Hydrocodone and a couple of Acetaminophen which took the pain down and took an Amoxicillin for the infection in the morning as instructed.
I’m hoping the swelling and pain will subside within the next few days, there is still a little pain in the teeth next to the extracted Wisdom teeth, but I guess that was to be expected as the area is swollen and inflamed at this time. Despite this, I still feel much better and in less pain than I did prior to the surgery.