Wisdom Tooth Sorrow

A few days after the CNY holidays, I started to have this slight pain in my lower gums on the right side of my face. I thought that I was heaty from all the CNY food that I had. So, I tried to drink lots of cooling drinks, take more fruits etc. But things didn't improve, in fact, it got worse and worse.

After 1-2 days of uncomfort in the gums....it turned to pain. I couldn't open my mouth widely, brushing my teeth hurts, eating hurts. Even doing nothing hurts. It's like a bad stiff neck...it's just bloody irritating. I couldn't eat anything because it hurts to move my mouth too much. So, I'll just eat a few bites then stop eating because the pain got worse. Otherwise I'll eat porridge or soup noodle. There's once I was eating pork ball soup noodle. I couldn't eat the pork ball because my mouth couldn't open big enough! Fiance had to bite the pork ball into small sizes so that I fit it into my mouth. The most that I can open my mouth is just to fit in 2 slices of bread.

The pain got very very bad. On a Friday night, I was trying to sleep early as I needed to work early morning the next day, but the pain was so bad that I couldn't sleep. . I took 2 panadols to try to numb the pain but it's no help at all. Then, I took 1 painkiller, still no help. The throbbing in my gums just won't stop. I was getting scared. I tought my mouth was going to explode or somthing. Out of desperation, I took another 2 panadols. I think the 4 panadols knocked me off and I drifted to sleep.

By now, I knew this is not just some heatiness problem (should have realised that sooner). I made a trip to the dentist, told her everything.....then the diagnosis - Wisdom Tooth giving me troubles. Apparently there's wisdom tooth on my lower right mouth is causing inflammation and infection in my gums around that tooth. It happens because I didn't not clean the wisdom tooth properly. It's always hard to clean a wisdom tooth because it's wayyy back in my mouth and it's not fully erupted (the teeth is not fully grown, part of the tooth is still underneath gums). So, over time, infection will happen causing pain and discomfort.........ahhhh....so much for my heatiness theory and drinking lots of cooling drinks...........

So, the dentist prescribe me some antibiotics and pain killers. And even after taking the antibiotics and painkillers for 3 days, I still feel the pain and mouth still cannot open very wide. Imagine all these days, I couldn't eat much. Eat porridge until want to vomit. Hey, I did want to lose weight.....but not on such torturing circumstances ler....

After 3 days, still pain, so dentist prescribe me another 2 more days of antibiotic. After finishing them, finally, the pain and discomfort is gone! Yeah ! Back to normal ! Until now, I didn't realise how satisfiying it is to have a good, open mouth wide, loud yawn ... :)

What will happen to my wisdom tooth ? well, sooner or later, I'm going to have to extract it. Otherwise it's going to give me trouble again. Because it's not fully erupted, the dentist cannot just pull it out, it'll involve a minor surgery to extract it. Gosh....hearing the word surgery really makes me nervous, I've never had any surgery whatsoever. And it's going to cost me RM500 ! This time really pokai.

I've also done some 'research' on my condition, seems that it's advised that you remove your wisdom tooth in your late teens or early twenties. Years ago, my dentist had also advised me to remove all my wisdom teeth. But that time, I didn't comprehend why I need to remove a perfectly problem-free tooth.....now I know.

So ppl ! Learn from my lesson. Go see your dentist. Check your wisdom teeth before something like this happens to you. (I hope it won't !)