Amandas little journey for straight teeth @ 26!

This is a re-cap of the last 3 days since my extractions on Tuesday (I was having 4 out #14 #24 #34 & #44; prior to braces)

Well, I shook the hand of the anaesthetist after I woke up on Tuesday - I was SOOO happy that I didn't remember anything and that was the main thing I was concerned about.

Basically, I walked in that morning, he took my blood pressure and ECG and said 'I'm just going to give you a little to calm your nerves' (this is before the dental tech even put on my bib) and I was out, don't remember a thing after those words.

I came-to seeing my boyfriend walk through the door to pick me up - he was laughing at me and I was groggy. I may have called him names. He later told me he was laughing as me because I was 'cute'. He's just an arsehole - but I mean that in a good way *love*

The dentist said it all went well and went faster than they expected (2.5hrs for 4 extractions, 3 fillings, 3 fissure sealings and a clean&scale) in the end is cost me $2,500 for that one visit (that includes the IV sedation). I was numb and a bit wonky when I got up but other than that I don't remember being in too much pain. I'd stocked up on codeine and soup before hand so I was ready to go home and recover. I was given fairly basic instructions (& my boyfriend listened in, in case I forgot due to amnesia from the sedation) & then we were off home.

So when I got home I had some ice cream and a nap and then got up and had some more ice cream. I was being very careful to not knock the clots loose BUT when i put some ice cream in my mouth I felt something icky come loose and knew it was the clots. I ran to the bathroom and just let it all run out so I didn't spit and of course, there were the two clots. There was no bleeding. I called the dentist & asked if it that was ok that they had come out and if there was anything else I should do. She said yes it should be fine. I however did some googling & found out about dry socket & the other things (don't spit etc). So i was trying to be really careful from then on as I didn't want to get an infection & dry socket as what I'd read scared the shit out of me (washing it out & packing it etc).

That first day I was fine - bit of pain but nothing major. I was sure I'd be back at work the next day.

However, the pain started to worsen that night and waking up at 3am to a very very painful mouth I decided best to stay home and rest one more day.

The next day I was pretty sick and in pain. I was taking codeine and panadol as on the packet (alternating between them) but I also wasn't eating much - ice cream and tomato soup. I ended up hurling most of the morning's intake of soup by lunch time and managed to get down some more ice cream but I was lacking food something terrible & was starving. My boyfriend brought home some more ice cream and sustagen (a drink powder for bulking up/working out) & i sprinkled that on to get a little more sustenance. I also found I could eat mash potato and that was GREAT cause I love mash potato - so I've been living off that for the last 2 days

Unfortunately I looked at the extraction sites in the mirror and they seems white around the edges - I assumed this may mean they were infected; so yesterday morning I went to the local GP because I couldn't get in at the dentist - she said it looked infected and prescribed some antibiotics (I called the dentist & asked him if that would be the same as he would prescribe, just to make sure, which it was) - so I started that yesterday morning. Feeling much better in general now I'm eating real food and not just ice cream (i.e. mash; and last night I had scrambled eggs).

So this afternoon i've booked in to go back to the dentist - they think it's dry socket and I've got to have it packed etc - i'm so bloody nervous about that because this was the whole reason i got knocked out/IV sedation to avoid the trauma...we'll see how it goes & i'll report later.

I've been through almost an entire packet of panadol and codeine in 3 days - I'm having to have 3 pills of 10mg codeine to have the pain ebb away enough that its bearable. I'm in a lot of pain - they gave me tramadol as well but I took one and it didn't do anything for the pain so I'm not taking any more of them (apparently, very addictive).

I'm also still booked in to have my braces put on tomorrow morning - so I don't know how that's going to go. Guess I'm going to load up on codeine before I go and then just sleep it all off for a couple of days. Luckily its the weekend. My boyfriend is away for the army as of tonight so I'll have to sort it all out myself but I'm a big girl He said if I am sick he'll come home and they don't normally let them leave so its good to know he has sorted that out for me.

I know it probably sounds like I'm whining a lot but Jesus H Christ I'm in pain!!! I'm hoping this is the worst of it because they are infected but who knows! Maybe I have a low tolerance for pain. Anyway, thought I might share my experience of extraction on here - no one really talks about extractions getting infected/dry socket. It seems everyone's extractions were pretty simple. God knows how mine got infected I followed the simple directions given to me and the little buggers still popped out Oh well.

Will post how I go with the dry sockets & braces tomorrow

Edit..packing wasn't as bad as I'd read but I crawled down the seat away from him and so they wern't packed well. 2 of 4 got packed because of dry socket but I think the top right should have got done too... 1 has already fallen out but the pain relief was excellent...and I'm out of ice cream and my bfs gone with the car so that blows... Could always ride the motorbike if desperate...lol