Wisdom Teeth Extraction, My First Surgery

I survived my wisdom teeth surgery! haha.

I have never had a surgery before. You can almost count the extraction of two of my lower teeth before I got my braces…but I was awake for it, so I don’t. I’ve only been anesthetized  once. It was for an endoscopy that revealed that I had an ulcer…in the 10th grade. I was a stressed out kid.

So here I am, blogging about a common surgery that I need only for cavity prevention. No impaction or anything crazy. I just can’t brush the little buggers and have had 5 cavities in the last year (my only ones) because of it. Seriously annoying.

My pre-surgical X-ray revealed that not only do I have big teeth (in combination with my deep occlusal surfaces = cavity party) but also, long roots. Super good for extraction and the nerve that sits across that part of the jaw. I’m currently so numb from local anesthesia that I can’t tell if there’s any sort of damage. I never know what they’re trying to numb with local anesthesia but it always numbs me up to my ears which is extremely obnoxious.

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Despite having had things to eat and drink, my tongue has decided it wants to feel dry. Might just be a numbness. My mom wouldn’t let me near my vicodin until I finished a cup of pudding. haha. Luckily, I haven’t had much swelling. I decided to set a timer to switch my ice pack to the other side of my face every 20 minutes. Worked out quite well. I can sort of feel my face now! The most bothersome sensation is the feeling pressure, mostly in my bottom jaw.

I’m not supposed to mess with the sockets for 48 hours and I can try to gently brush my teeth the day after surgery. Unlike other protocols I’ve heard of, I wasn’t given anything to flush the sockets with. This is probably a good thing since the whole syringe idea seems counter productive to me.

Hopefully I recover quickly since the soft food diet gets old pretty fast. Obviously, I can’t wait for the popsicle diet when I have my tonsillectomy. Hooray surgery. And hooray vicodin.

Entropion

At the vet hospital, we’ve had the sweetest little female bulldog come in a few times in the last month. The first time I saw her, she had a fever in the area of 105˚ so we had to wet her down, set her on an ice pack and wonder why the heck she got so hot. (The average temperature for a dog is around 102.5˚F.) The next time, I restrained her while she had some sutures put in (while she was still awake) to try to deal with swelling around her eye. Earlier this week, she was in for entropion surgery.

An entropion is a condition in which the eyelid rolls inward.

via Google search

Flat faced dogs, like pugs, are susceptible to this sort of eye deformity. The hair on the rolled in eyelid can damage the eye by rubbing against it causing erosion or ulcers which may lead to scarring. The surgery required to fix this is a form of plastic surgery. Sections of the extra skin are removed to tighten the eyelid. In puppies, “lid tacking” can be performed. This is done by suturing the extra skin downward to open the eyelid. Unless the entropion is extreme, it usually won’t come back. The Shar Pei tends to be a breed in which the condition will return. The condition can be passed on to offspring to animals with entropions should not be bred.

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Sources:

1. http://animaleyecare.net/diseases/canine.htm