Are we losing our wisdom teeth?

[midwestyankee]

I'm 49 and have mine.

My kids 19 and 17 had them. The oldest had hers removed only because I was convinced it was a needed thing in her case.

You are not 49. I remember your pic thread. If you're 49, I'm 129.

 

[Yasashii_Kaze]

It seems people are telling their horror stories about getting their wisdom teeth taken out. I have my own horror story, but it's a pretty long tale. I don't want to bore you all with it unless you really, really want to hear it.

Trust me...it has humor and pain and even some bad dentist things in there for good measure. But, I know I sometimes have a problem with my posts...they are sometimes very long.

Hey, I'm just a guy who likes to give out all of the necessary information in story format, like you are sitting in front of me and I'm explaining the whole thing as it happened.

So, for now, I'll just say I had mine taken out by the time I was 30. And every member of my family also had theirs removed except for my father. And it's kind of funny, because I considered him the smartest member of our family, but his wisdom teeth never came in!

Well, I for one enjoy your long stories.

I had all four taken out about a year or so ago since it was nearly impossible to floss between the other teeth. We have a really good oral surgeon here, so I got put under and had wonderful meds when I woke up. Everything healed up nicely, although the threads from the stitches drove me batty. In fact, I remember that bugging me more than the pain. Like I said, really good meds.

 

[FurryFury]

You are not 49. I remember your pic thread. If you're 49, I'm 129.

Aww . . . thanks.

Yep, I'll be 50 in November.

LOL.

 

[cromsgirl]

Mine are gone

I had mine removed when I was 26. I had gone to the dentist for fillings and the topical numbing gel caused severe pain in my partially erupted wisdom tooth. Both lower teeth were only partially erupted and both had cavities. My dentist then took PAN films ( whole mouth on one film) and my upper wisdom teeth had moved from up in my cheek bones ( where they had been about 1 1/2 years before that) to where they were about to start pressing on the roots of my last molars. She sent me to a surgeon to have them removed. Unfortunately they only gave me Aleve for the pain. I am glad they were all removed at the same time, though, because if I had had to have more done after the first time I would have refused. Unless they offered me much better drugs.

 

[midwestyankee]

Aww . . . thanks.

Yep, I'll be 50 in November.

LOL.

Taking second place in line to give you your birthday spanks (knowing who - deservedly - has place #1).

 

[CurlyKat]

I'm 25, still have all of my wisdom teeth, have never had braces, and have never had a cavity. Yes, I realize that most of the time this makes me the odd one. When my wisdom teeth started coming in at 16, my mom took me to an oral surgeon who took one look in my mouth and at the X-rays. He told me that it would be just plain silly to pull the teeth out when they had plenty of room and were coming in straight with absolutely no sign of affecting any other tooth. And they haven't. They're all the way in now, sitting just fine and dandy like the rest of them are. My last dentist said I should be a tooth model.

 

[ecstaticsub]

I still have my top wisdom teeth. They have never erupted through the gums. They don't bother me every either. I never had any on the bottom.

I'm in my mid-40's.

 

[graceanne]

I got my wisdom teeth at 15ish. I had them removed when I was 18.

 

[YourCaptor]

I have one, lower right. Still there, dentist offered to pull it, but I think he just wants the moneys. I asked why he wants it, and he basically said, it’s one extra tooth that could experience problems, and removing it later on would be much more difficult. I’ll take my chances.

As for the evolution theory. Well, lets see. I don’t fully get evolution, the more I learn about it the more stupid it seems and the more I hate it. When it comes down to it, it’s so ridiculously farfetched and fragile, it makes you want to crush your skull for fear of your bodies shitty design collapsing in the most horrid of ways. Well, there you go, that’s my general stand with biology anyway.

It’s more likely that the wisdom tooth gene is just no longer being regulated by environment, rather then evolving out of the system. It gets mutated, expressed, the result is totally neutral in most cases, cause lets face it, do you really need that extra tooth to live any better, no, at least no in this day and age. So you find it missing in some people, totally fucked up in others, and harmful to the unlucky. For it to be evolving out of the system, it would have to significantly increase chance of death or failure to reproduce in the individual.

So in short, if its evolving out, we would know it.

 

[Etoile]

My wisdoms were all impacted, so they came out when I was about 20, give or take a year. Three came out easily but one had to be split into pieces to get it out. I still have them.

I think I had general anesthesia, that's the only way I can imagine getting through it! I used to have serious fear of the dentist, so that must have been it. They gave me nitrous oxide to start with, and I was having fun with that, then they gave me an injection in my arm. I swore I could feel the liquid running up my vein inside my arm! That's the last thing I remember before waking up in the recovery room. Makes me wonder how I got there.

 

[Netzach]

3 of 4 out, all local. It was a cakewalk of the many extractions I've had, I can't even remember how many. I had "crowded mouth" braces, impacted premolars ripped out without the nerves adequately numbed because I was 12 so my screams had to be melodrama not actual pain.

I will never have a local again for just about anything to do with my mouth, thanks to the last extraction I had with a local and promises that it would "go fine"

Horseshit.

 

[midwestyankee]

3 of 4 out, all local. It was a cakewalk of the many extractions I've had, I can't even remember how many. I had "crowded mouth" braces, impacted premolars ripped out without the nerves adequately numbed because I was 12 so my screams had to be melodrama not actual pain.

I will never have a local again for just about anything to do with my mouth, thanks to the last extraction I had with a local and promises that it would "go fine"

Horseshit.

I'm with you. I need nitrous just to walk into the dentist's g-d office.

 

[graceanne]

Now that I have more time.

My wisdom teeth showed up on xrays when I was almost 16. We couldn't afford to do anything about it until I was 18. I had my wisdom teeth out the day after me and K made our dating status official. They were all impacted, and so I had to have oral surgery. My face swelled up like a balloon, and I had bruises literally ear to ear. I could only open my mouth wide enough to get a straw through it. About a week after, the swelling had gone down, but I still had bruises. We went to visit K's mom and she, of course, asked about the bruises. Before I could answer K said 'Oh, she got mouthy so I smacked her on.'

The look on his mom's face! LOL

 

[Cattypuss]

, but I still had bruises. We went to visit K's mom and she, of course, asked about the bruises. Before I could answer K said 'Oh, she got mouthy so I smacked her on.'

The look on his mom's face! LOL

Priceless!

 

[graceanne]

Priceless!

It was. Oh, my word, I laughed so hard!

 

[DVS]

I'm curious about this. My friend has a theory, (she has worked in a dentist office for 25 years), that we are starting to lose our wisdom teeth as they are no longer necessary.

My dentist knew that I would never have room in my mouth for them and so as soon as they began growing, (as evidenced by X-ray), I had them surgically removed.

In the poll, choose your age group then indicate whether you have wisdom teeth but had to have them removed, or if you have never grown wisdom teeth at all.

If you have wisdom teeth and have not had to have them removed, then there's an option for that at the bottom.

If you're a parent, do your kids have wisdom teeth?

I just came back to this thread and have now seen that I falsified my answer.

When I first read the pole, I thought it meant how old was I when I had my wisdom teeth removed. I was approximately 30, if I remember that far back correctly. But, reading the pole again, I see I should have selected 50+ and my wisdom teeth have been removed.

Sorry...my bad. God, I'm a racist and now this? Someone in this world really hates me!

 

[FurryFury]

I never had braces but I had about eight permanent teeth taken out instead as a child.

"If you don't cry, I'll take you to the 5 and dime to pick out a small toy." My mom would say. I fell for it too.

Later I was given a retainer. "When it breaks, you will be done with it." The doc said. I made sure it broke very quickly. LOL.

Once, years ago I needed a filling replacement in a back tooth. I was and am a very busy mom but at that time, my kids were smaller and I had very little time.

It was a new dentist. He tried shot, after shot, after shot. There must have been about 8 of them. Finally, I said, "It's not working. Just do it. I have no more time to spend here. I have to get back to my kids before my husband starts work tonight." Not a fun time.

3 of 4 out, all local. It was a cakewalk of the many extractions I've had, I can't even remember how many. I had "crowded mouth" braces, impacted premolars ripped out without the nerves adequately numbed because I was 12 so my screams had to be melodrama not actual pain.

I will never have a local again for just about anything to do with my mouth, thanks to the last extraction I had with a local and promises that it would "go fine"

Horseshit.

 

[FurryFury]

I'm with you. I need nitrous just to walk into the dentist's g-d office.

I WISH I could get it. I'm terribly creative on nitrous but I still feel the pain. I just don't care. I'm too busy writing a play or movie about the dental assistant's nostrils or whatever. LMAO.

 

[Etoile]

I just came back to this thread and have now seen that I falsified my answer.

When I first read the pole, I thought it meant how old was I when I had my wisdom teeth removed. I was approximately 30, if I remember that far back correctly. But, reading the pole again, I see I should have selected 50+ and my wisdom teeth have been removed.

Sorry...my bad. God, I'm a racist and now this? Someone in this world really hates me!

Oh hey, I missed that too! But the age category is broad enough that my answer is still right.

 

[DVS]

Well, I for one enjoy your long stories.

I had all four taken out about a year or so ago since it was nearly impossible to floss between the other teeth. We have a really good oral surgeon here, so I got put under and had wonderful meds when I woke up. Everything healed up nicely, although the threads from the stitches drove me batty. In fact, I remember that bugging me more than the pain. Like I said, really good meds.

Well, all righty, then. If anybody complains, it's all your fault!

My upper wisdom teeth came in fine and I had them pulled at a pretty early age. I don't remember it, so I'm sure it was mostly uneventful. But, in my mid 20s into my 30s, I didn't have dental insurance. I was about 30 when I had my lower wisdom teeth cut out. Yes, I said cut out. My uppers came in fine, but my lowers came in sideways, and were pressing forward, against my lower teeth and making them crooked.

I didn't have any money or insurance, so I had to wait until I had the dough. My lower teeth were hurting, because the wisdom teeth were pushing them together. And, I waited almost too long, because the roots of the wisdom teeth had grown into my jaw. I wasn't told about this up front, but when I went in for the operation, I was given a 10mg Valium and told to sign papers. See, that's how they do it. They dope you up, and THEN have you sign the forms. I had no idea what I was signing, but didn't care at that point.

when I got in there, they rushed into the process. I did the "count backwards from 100" thing, and only remember getting to 98 or so. When I woke up, I don't remember much about what happened, but a friend who was there to drive me home said I was pretty out of it.

He said they told me the price was $295.00, but like all doctors they just said "two ninety five." He said I wrote a check for $2.95. I guess they all got a big kick out of that, but I don't remember a thing. I guess I WAS out of it.

Later, the doctor said he talked to me about my operation and how it had gone OK, but there were some problems I needed to know about. I don't remember anything about that, either. But, later I found out the hard way. He had to cut out so much of my jaw to get the roots of one tooth, that he was concerned my jaw would break. Of course I didn't know this, because I was out of it, when he told me, initially. He later said I could have bitten down on something and maybe cracked my jaw. Actually, I don't think that could have happened. It sounded like a bit of an exaggeration.

He must have had my mouth open really far for a long time, because my muscles reacted so much, I couldn't get my mouth open more than enough to push bits of cooked hamburger in for almost 2 weeks. I could chew fine, but the difficult part was getting something into my mouth. I lived on milk shakes, hamburgers (no buns, just the crumbled up burger shoved between my teeth), and pieces of fruit. Brushing my teeth wasn't very easy, nor was it probably very complete job, either.

My jaw didn't hurt, but my mouth just wouldn't open. I did try to pull it open a few times, but I'm glad I didn't do it too much, because if the dentist was correct in how much of my jaw he had cut away, I could have broken my jaw by pulling on it like I was. And, for about a month, I was spitting pieces of tooth out that was slowing finding it's way out of my gums. He must have stitched the gums up, leaving slivers of tooth behind.

And I don't notice it much any more, but he cut some of my cheek away from my jaw, so I have more loose cheek on my right side, than I do on my left side. It's not that noticeable, unless I show you.

Now I've left the bad part of all of this for last. The day after the operation, the doctor called me to see how I was. He had given me a script for Tylenol with codeine, but I hadn't taken any. The reason was my jaw was still numb. I asked him when the feeling would come back, and there was a long silence on the phone. He said, "the feeling should be back by now." I told him it wasn't and there was another short silence. He didn't say anything else about it. In the operation, he had cut a nerve.

Now, I've never been the kind of person to sue someone, because we weren't brought up to be such people. But, as I look back today, I really think I should have sued the shit out of him. My lower jaw, from my front teeth on back, and the lip and chin that covered those teeth was numb for 10 years. That's when the pains started. Well, there is still a small spot that is numb...27 years later.

It was kind of an ongoing joke with my present dentist that he could save me some money by not giving me a shot if he would be drilling on those lower teeth. Oh, I never let him try, but we did joke about it. The first couple years, I would bite my lip if I wasn't careful, but you get to where you learn to not do those things, with practice.

When the feeling started coming back, the progress was very slow. Nerves take a very long time to grow back, and as the years went along, there would be times when I felt little sharp pains in my lip, like someone was sticking a needle into it. That was the nerve growing back. The pains didn't last long, but I loved it when it happened, because I knew it was coming back. Interesting how pain was a good thing, then. No, I'm not a pain slut.

There's more horror to this story, but I think I'll stop here. I've rambled long enough.

 

[DVS]

God, I knew it! Everybody reads my last post, falls asleep and never gets around to posting. I'm a thread killer.

 

[chelleb]

I got braces when I was a teenager. The orthodontist x-ray'd my mouth and was astonished that my wisdom teeth looked like they were going to come in straight, with no problems. He suggested leaving them be unless they became a problem, and my parents agreed.

I am 36 and all 4 of my wisdom teeth have come it straight. I sometimes bite my cheek way back there, but otherwise there is no problem. Oddly enough, I don't remember them coming in t all.

 

[Keroin]

So the only people who have never had wisdom teeth fall in the 18-30 category. Interesting.

 

[Homburg]

As I've said before, my dad was in the Army, so I was involved in the military's medical system from day one til my 18th birthday. Anyway, back then, military doctors were okay, but the dentists generally sucked. No offense to anyone what likes military dentistry, but the one sI went to sucked horribly.

When my wisdom teeth were coming in on the bottom, they hurt, ow. I wouldn't go though, as we were in Gemrany and I knew we had a visit to my mom's hometown coming up. I figured I could go to the local dentist and my folks could claim it under the military healthcare. As this was the case, my parents agreed.

We go back to my mom's dinky western PA hometown and I go to the dentist. He dopes me up good and solid and starts working on me. Once he'd numbed me good, he gets chatty. I hate that, but all dentists do it. My thinking is shut the fuck up and get it done, but the dentist wants to fuckin talk. He finds out that my dad was army and says, "Oh really? That how I got my start as a dentist. I was in the Navy."

Well, fuck me. Fly half a world away and go to a flyspeck town in bumfuck, PA to avoid military dentists, and what do I find but a retired military dentist.

Well, the tooth came out, and I was sent on my way numb as fuck. As the numb wears off, wow, my gums and cheek hurt. I go back to the dentist the next day only to be blown off. I went back again, as the pain got worse and I couldn't really talk. Got blown off again. I went back a third time, bleeding, and basically threatened violence if he did not at least take a look in my mouth.

He gets in there, and, wow, he'd sewn my gums to the inside of my cheek.

I still hate military dentists.

 

[Keroin]

As I've said before, my dad was in the Army, so I was involved in the military's medical system from day one til my 18th birthday. Anyway, back then, military doctors were okay, but the dentists generally sucked. No offense to anyone what likes military dentistry, but the one sI went to sucked horribly.

When my wisdom teeth were coming in on the bottom, they hurt, ow. I wouldn't go though, as we were in Gemrany and I knew we had a visit to my mom's hometown coming up. I figured I could go to the local dentist and my folks could claim it under the military healthcare. As this was the case, my parents agreed.

We go back to my mom's dinky western PA hometown and I go to the dentist. He dopes me up good and solid and starts working on me. Once he'd numbed me good, he gets chatty. I hate that, but all dentists do it. My thinking is shut the fuck up and get it done, but the dentist wants to fuckin talk. He finds out that my dad was army and says, "Oh really? That how I got my start as a dentist. I was in the Navy."

Well, fuck me. Fly half a world away and go to a flyspeck town in bumfuck, PA to avoid military dentists, and what do I find but a retired military dentist.

Well, the tooth came out, and I was sent on my way numb as fuck. As the numb wears off, wow, my gums and cheek hurt. I go back to the dentist the next day only to be blown off. I went back again, as the pain got worse and I couldn't really talk. Got blown off again. I went back a third time, bleeding, and basically threatened violence if he did not at least take a look in my mouth.

He gets in there, and, wow, he'd sewn my gums to the inside of my cheek.

I still hate military dentists.

I'm scared now.