Looks like I'm going to have to have all 5 of my wisdom teeth pulled out sometime in the next week or two. I'm guessing that there is going to be some downtime with regards to eating and working out. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I would be able to eat during this time? I'm guess it's going to be very difficult to eat many solid foods for at least a couple of days.

You have FIVE? I only had 4 ;)

Some people recover well and others do not. I had, just to say I had, a burger the day after getting mine out. I had swelling for a few days, and almost no pain. It was great. I'd planned on high protein shakes, but I introduced solid food properly two days after the surgery.

Ok that doesn't sound too terribly bad.

And yes, I have five wisdom teeth. :nod: The fifth one is not even erupted, but is impacting against one of my other partialy erupted wisdom teeth. The dentist was pretty weirded out. He had only ever witnessed that one other time. He said I probably wouldn't have any problems with it until I was 50 or 60, but I really didn't want to have wisdom tooth surgery that late in the game, so I'm opting for now.

Hmmm...never heard of anyone having 5 wisdom teeth! :D Anyway, I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth pulled last week. I thought it would be the most horrendous experience of my life (based on all the horror stories I heard from people), but it actually didn't turn out that bad at all. By the way, my 2 bottom teeth were in the HORIZONTAL position, which made it all the more difficult for the doc to take out. So now on to my diet:
For the first day or two I mainly rested (no workouts) and ate things like jello, pudding, soup (good protein source if you add chicken in there and then puree the baby!), and protein shakes. Anything that you can mash up and still tolerate is fair game (i.e. bananas, soft peaches, pears, etc.).
After day 3, you can probably resume your workouts (if you're up for it). At this time, I was able to tolerate most solid food (just stay away from things that break into pieces such as nuts, rice, chips, pretzels, popcorn, etc., as they can get lodged up in your surgery sites). You'll soon notice that you can pretty much eat any solid food that you were eating before. It just takes a little time to adjust to the feeling of chewing normally again and using all of your back teeth. I was too scared to use my back teeth for the first couple of days and only relied on my front teeth (not a smart decision...I'd literally be eating my main meal while everyone else at the table had cleaned their dessert plates and were clearing up the table).

Anyway, good luck! I'm sure you'll be fine! :tu:

TAKE THIS ADVICE!!!!!!!

Do not wash your mouth out excessively or drink anything carbonated for a day or two. This may sound a little gross..but right after you have them removed, ur mouth is pretty bloody. My first reaction when I got home was to rinse my mouth out every few hours. I guess I did it too much. I got what is called "DRY SOCKET". Basically, by rinsing so much, I washed away the blood clots that are supposed to form over the cavity where me teeth used to be...thus, leaving the cavities open to my saliva, anything I drank, anything I ate, etc. Dry socket is by far the most painful thing I have ever endured. Its like putting ur head in a vice..and then some!! Not to mention, the only way to fix "dry socket" is to go to the dentist and have the holes plugged with a small strip of fabric soaked in some of the worst smelling medicine I have ever smelled in my life. On top of that, you have to go through this process daily for about 2 weeks!!!

So ..to make a long story short...DO NOT RINSE UR MOUTH OUT, DRINK ANYTHING CARBONATED, OR SMOKE!!!!!!

:mad:

Recovery time from having your wisdom teeth pulled varies from person to person. I had four fully impacted wisdom teeth, and it took me a long time to recover. It was about 12 years ago that I had mine removed, so my memory is a little bit foggy. I think it took about a week for the bleeding to stop. I was unable to eat anything but soft foods like macaroni and cheese during this time. I think recovery time totally depends on if and how severely your teeth are impacted.

I was given the choice of local or general anesthetic. Against my doctor's advice, I chose local because it was less expensive and I thought I would be more up for celebrating a friend's 21st birthday the evening after my surgery. If I had to do it over again, I would have chosen general. When they only administer local anesthetic, they put blocks in your mouth to keep you from biting down during the procedure. When your teeth are fully impacted, they have to break them apart to disconnect them from your jaw bone. Needless to say, this is painful and it causes you to bite down on the blocks. I always felt like the tension this caused in my jaw during the procedure made things worse. My jaws were so swollen, I looked like Marlon Brando in the GodFather for about four days, and I didn't even come close to feeling good enough to celebrate with my friends.

woo, I have 5 wisdom teeth too. My dentist didn't seem to weirded out by it, but his assistant was. Was always curious how strange it was. I haven't set an appointment to get them removed yet, but I'll probably have to do it within the year *grumble*

I just had mine out yesterday. I decided to take it easy for the first day or so and not track calories, but stil try to consume more or less sensibly. I did have some Healthy Choice ice cream as a treat, but other than that, I've been good.

My thinking was that it's more important to recover well than to worry about weight loss you could experience over 2 or 3 days. As long as you don't eat purely high fat ice cream, I'm sure it won't have too much of an effect.

My check-up is tomorrow and I'm thinking I will be back to some semi-solid foods by tomorrow night or Saturday at the latest. The difference is that I only had 1 of them out, though. I was always told they did not need to come out because of where they were in my jaw, but an infection earlier this week necessitated the removal of one. Your recovery may be a little longer since you're getting more out, but it seems to vary person-to-person.

Also, I took the nitrous in addition to the novacaine because of the pain of my infection, and I was very glad that I did. It really helps you relax during the procedure. When the dentist was pulling the tooth out, I had my eyes closed and I wasn't even thinking about what was going on. If your insurance will cover it, you might consider that.

Good luck! It really was nowhere near as bad as I was told it was going to be. Hope that's the case for you.

Well, I'm being recommended for IV sedation. So they should be putting me completely under. I won't even be awake. :tu:

I think you're probably right about worrying more about good recovery than weight gain/loss. I don't want to complicate the procedure and one week or so isn't going to just kill me. Heck, 29 years hasn't killed me!

Hmmm...never heard of anyone having 5 wisdom teeth! :D Anyway, I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth pulled last week. I thought it would be the most horrendous experience of my life (based on all the horror stories I heard from people), but it actually didn't turn out that bad at all. By the way, my 2 bottom teeth were in the HORIZONTAL position, which made it all the more difficult for the doc to take out. So now on to my diet:
For the first day or two I mainly rested (no workouts) and ate things like jello, pudding, soup (good protein source if you add chicken in there and then puree the baby!), and protein shakes. Anything that you can mash up and still tolerate is fair game (i.e. bananas, soft peaches, pears, etc.).
After day 3, you can probably resume your workouts (if you're up for it). At this time, I was able to tolerate most solid food (just stay away from things that break into pieces such as nuts, rice, chips, pretzels, popcorn, etc., as they can get lodged up in your surgery sites). You'll soon notice that you can pretty much eat any solid food that you were eating before. It just takes a little time to adjust to the feeling of chewing normally again and using all of your back teeth. I was too scared to use my back teeth for the first couple of days and only relied on my front teeth (not a smart decision...I'd literally be eating my main meal while everyone else at the table had cleaned their dessert plates and were clearing up the table).

Anyway, good luck! I'm sure you'll be fine! :tu:




What kind of anesthetic did you have? I heard that a few people had the nitrous gas and suggested that.... I'm a little nervous about the whole thing. :d_eek:

What kind of anesthetic did you have? I heard that a few people had the nitrous gas and suggested that.... I'm a little nervous about the whole thing. :d_eek:

I had an IV sedation. They put a drip in my arm. I was alert for about a minute and then I got really groggy and closed my eyes. I remember the oral surgeon telling me to open my mouth wide two times and then I felt him poke my gums once right above each wisdom tooth, but it didn't hurt (needle?). Then two minutes later (or what felt like two minutes, it was actually 20 to 30) they were waking me up.

Recovery wasn't too bad. I ate scrambled eggs and lots of protein shakes the first day. They gave me some really good drugs to help with the pain. Hydrocodone. I had to rinse out my sockets with a little curved syringe after every meal.

I'm glad I went through with it now. I have a lot fewer problems with my wisdom teeth and no more pain.

I got the local anaesthetic when I had mine done and it was a blast. It's kind of surreal being conscious while someone shatters four of your teeth and rips them out of your head. I needed about 16-18 freezing needles and only two of them hurt, the two in the soft pallete.

I had the local too. First one side, then the other a few weeks apart because I don't like going under general unless absolutely necessary. Also in the UK at the time I would have had to go to the hospital since after a couple of fatal accidents with the general they banned general anesthetics in dentist offices. I had heard of people coming out with lots of bruising since the hospital dentists aren’t so careful when you are under general anesthetic.

Anyway it was bad. 20 min of digging with the scalpel, cracking and drilling for the bottom one (both times) - and I gave the dentist a scare by passing out when he started drilling and the smell of burning hit my nose! About 20 sec for the top ones - seemed really easy by comparison!

Then went home and drank a glass of orange juice :tu: – not the most intelligent think I have ever done. Not the stupidest – but definitely not the cleverest either!

I felt "lucky" to only have four teeth to take out. They put me on the gas, and I got to be really silly for about four seconds. Then they were picking me up to leave.

Recovery wasn't too bad. I ate scrambled eggs and lots of protein shakes the first day. They gave me some really good drugs to help with the pain. Hydrocodone.


I just quoted it for the better emphasis on eating eggs or protein shake. I didn't have this luxury. My dad said that I'd get sick (putting a raw egg in a McD's shake, which would have been just fabulous at the time). So I went through 48 hours of no food/water intake, a good 24 hours of that got to be really trippy crazy dreams. Not so much the drugs, though.

They gave me hydrocodone, but it didn't help me. Had I been cognizant, I'd've asked for the really strong tylenol. (Unless that is the really strong tylenol.)

And in retrospect, I'd probably do it all over again. The gas made me loopy, that was kinda neat.

Jeff.

I was on a barbecue the same day I pulled out my first two. I drank a lot of alcohol that helped me endure the pain from chewing on the meat. :)