Question:
I have never had my wisdom teeth pulled before and I have prayed all of my life
that I never would have them pulled but alas...my dentist has recommended
pulling all of my wisdom teeth. One upper one has a cavity in it and needs a
root canal and the other upper one is weak.
If I have this done do I need to tell the doctor about my Sleep Apnea?
Answer:
Most certainly, and you should NOT have this done under general anesthetic. Wisdom
tooth extraction is not really a big deal. The bottoms have practically no roots
at all. Also, I would recommend it be done by an oral surgeon, not a dentist due
to your OSA.
My dentist uses Nitrous Oxide at my request. I have a lot of trouble with
freezing. You feel the pain but you don't care, like its happening to
someone else. Its awful hard to focus on the TV program while under Nitrous
Oxide. At the end of the procedure, they dial out the Nitrous and dial up
the oxygen, and you are back to reality (which was in already in progress).
Have had wisdom teeth done, root canal etc, works for me.
I agree with this, have an Oral Surgeon do the job. All of mine were pulled
by an Oral Surgeon but one and I was very very sorry I used a regular
dentist to pull it. Mine were all impacted.
Maybe it wasn't a big deal to you, but it was excruciating for me! I had the
top two removed, general anesthesia, no problem. The bottom two were done
with just Novocaine (my dental insurance at the time didn't cover general) .
It took six needles on each side to get me numb enough, and the teeth were
so huge (and yes they had ROOTS) that the surgeon couldn't just pull them,
but instead used a hammer and chisel to break them into pieces and pick them
out with forceps. I missed three days of work, and two weeks later, shards
of tooth worked themselves out of my gum. It was horrible, worse than
childbirth IMHO!
Everyone's teeth are different!!!
From your description, yours were deformed at the root area. This is
common when there isn't enough room in the jaw and especially when you get your
wisdom teeth early in life. The root area deforms and curls under a bit, so
they split them and twist them to get them out. If you have ever pulled
porcupine needles from a dogs nose (or your own leg) then you know what I mean.
My uppers were like that and still, I didn't feel it was a big deal. But then,
the surgeon spent a great deal of time explaining what he would be doing and
what the outcome would be two weeks before the procedure, so I knew what too
expect. He even described the shards of bone that kept working their way out.
