My wisdom teeth experience 7 days post op *as an anxious person 23/f

After weeks of reading everything possible on this thread anticipating the surgery and following I decided to share a little bit about my experience in hopes to ease some anxiety for others. I’m not a dental professional and I can’t speak for anyone else’s experience I just know what triggers my anxiety is similar for a lot of people and I am finally feeling relieved 7 days post op that nothing has truly gone wrong.

DAY OF SURGERY: I got all 4 wisdom teeth out surgically last Monday. The bottom two were impacted. I was terrified for months and had moved the surgery twice. I’d never been put under or had any surgery for that matter and I have pretty bad health anxiety (possibly ocd but not diagnosed) . I had a bit of a freak out right before they put me under because it felt like so much was happening but I expressed this to the ladies taking care of me and they reassured me and let me take a second to breathe. I REALLY recommend looking for an office with great reviews. I asked a friend who had a positive experience getting hers out where she went and she said this place was amazing so I chose to go here. I remember the doctor telling me to think about something positive like all the milkshakes I’ll be drinking the following week and then I remember waking up to Charlie Brown Christmas on the tv and feeling like my mouth was full and tasted like blood. I felt sleepy and confused and remember asking the other lady in the room if everything went okay and she said yes sweetheart let’s go see your mom. And that was that!

FIRST THREE DAYS; My diet consisted of pudding, jello, mashed potatoes, refried beans, soup, and milkshakes. I’m sure you’ve already read no sucking, spitting, straws, seeds, etc. etc. so I’m not gonna bore you with that. Swallowing was incredibly hard for me so for the first three days I had a washcloth tucked into my shirt at all times to be my bib. I drooled constantly. I watched a lot of movies and shows and played stardew valley. I slept sitting up on my back and did a saltwater rinse and rinsed with the mouthwash they prescribed after everytime I ate something. I was constantly hungry and the pain meds and amoxicillin hurt my stomach. I have been taking 600 mg Ibprophen every 6 hours and Tylenol every 4 hours HAVE A ROUTINE WITH PAIN MEDS don’t miss a dose, set an alarm at 3 am if you have to. I have experienced little to no pain because of this. I also have been icing my face on and off every 20 mins so I’ve had little to no swelling. After a couple days switch to heat to get the movement back in your jaw. I bled constantly the first day, a little the second day, and once the third day but only slightly. My mouth tasted like shit honestly, it’s a mix of the blood and nasty healing stuff and trapped food and it’s gross. Even after I gently brushed my teeth and did the mouthwash my breath was stanky, but it’s normal. The first couple days sucked but mostly cause I was hungry and absolutely terrified of dry socket. But I lived.

Note• Day 3 is when I noticed I still had no feeling in the right half of my bottom lip and chin, currently on day 7 I don’t have any feeling but I’ve heard this happens and it should come back soon. It doesn’t really bother me it’s just a weird feeling.

Day 4-6: I noticed throughout these days I was starting to feel better. I have been eating Mac n cheese, scrambled eggs (pro tip- scramble on low with a couple tablespoons of water to get the fluffiest eggs, no chewing required), smoothies, soup with noodles, etc. I noticed my breath starting to not smell or taste as bad probably because I could brush my back teeth a little easier. Day 4 I would say was my hardest day because I wanted to be done with this. I wanted to fall asleep and wake up in two weeks all healed and back to normal. On the night of day 4 I was brushing my teeth and accidentally grazed my top left extraction sight. It started bleeding and I had a bit of a meltdown. I was sobbing and terrified I had just dislodged the clot and I was a goner. I put gauze over it for a few minutes and when I pulled it away I realized it had stopped and it was actually just one of my stitches had come out. It’s been fine since then lol. Day 6 I cleaned my whole apartment and had coffee again for the first time in a week which was amazing (lukewarm coffee btw, still avoiding hot liquids). I slept on my side the night of day 6 which was awesome too. I told my boyfriend I really want to go out for dinner when I’m all healed and he agreed and we discussed all the amazing things I’ll be able to eat which is giving me something to look forward to haha.

Alright so now here we are on day 7. I just ate my breakfast of scrambled eggs, a smoothie, and avocado. I called my surgeon this morning to double check I’m good to use the syringe since it’s day 7 and he said I’m all good! I was pretty terrified to use it since I’ve been actively avoiding the holes in my mouth and now I face them. I toughened up, went to my bathroom, used a flashlight and a tiny mirror and got to work. And uh yeah, a lot of stuff came out of them. It was gross. But kinda satisfying like other people have said. And my mouth felt a lot cleaner. I know it is so scary but after I did it I immediately was like wow that was not scary at all. I did wait till one week post op and that reduced my anxiety a lot because I knew I was past the point where dry socket was most likely to happen.

All in all, getting my wisdom teeth removed really sucked. At some points I was like dang maybe I should’ve left those suckers in there BUT I know I wouldn’t be wanting to deal with this in ten years when they are negatively impacting my quality of life. My top recommendations are to be somewhere your comfortable with people who will take care of you and make you feel reassured and to do things to make yourself happy during the process. I took a bath every night with candles and ate ice cream and played music I love and it was something to relax me and help me look forward to something. On the 4th day my boyfriend brought my tiramisu and I actually cried with joy lol. I bought a couple new games to try out on my switch to reward myself for going through something so difficult. Do things for yourself to make the experience less miserable, and you got this! I was in your shoes and trust me I was a mess. But now I’m starting to see the other side and realize that I’m gonna be fine and maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

Feel free to ask me any questions and I’ll answer if I can help in any way :).

TWO WEEK UPDATE: Just had a lovely glass of wine after eating salmon, roasted potatoes, and boiled carrots! Life is good again! I’m still eating mostly soft foods just because I don’t like the feeling of hard stuff getting stuck in the sockets but I can chew fine and dandy now. It’s no longer scary and actually very satisfying to flush out the sockets. I stopped taking any pain meds because I no longer need them. Everything is much less swollen and painful and weird looking. I have some tingling feelings in my lip and chin and when I touch it I can faintly feel it, which is signaling the nerves are healing. All is well.