wisdom teeth

Tuesday..

I get up by my alarm, take my ibuprofen, check work email, and plop back into bed. So much for getting up earlier. The next time I get up is because I’m due to take my antibiotic. Time to grab some food.

I begin to think about expanding my limited food choices with cottage cheese. I worry that I’m not getting enough calcium and protein in my diet. I’ve started to get a few muscle spasms, and I hope that doesn’t mean I’m low on potassium.

After being up and about the house for a while I decide to try to go out to grocery shop for food supplies. When I get in my car I note I need gas too. So both it is. When I get out at the grocery store I notice in my rear view mirror that in daylight my bruises look much worse. I mentally whimper, feel that self-conscious mood again, hang my head down, and try to avoid eye contact. I maneuver around the store making pains to avoid people and especially children. Last thing I want to do is scare them with my looks. I grab what I need to. A couple of women meet my eyes and smile. I smile back though I don’t feel happy at all. Even smiling too much hurts thanks to the big bruise on my left. No one says anything to me. I’m not sure if I like that or not. It is a bit comforting that I don’t have to explain why I look this way. I just hope people aren’t getting the wrong ideas.

The store feels awfully warm to me and it’s already very hot outside. I’m not sure if that’s because of what I’m going through or not. I’ve been warned on the paperwork to stay out of the sun and heat. Yeah that’s not hard to do when you’re already Irish and turn into a cooked lobster when you sit under the sun for too long. I quicken my pace. A cashier leads me to the self check out. I wasn’t sure I had the energy to do it but what the heck. It’s the only verbal acknowledgement I get. Once I’m outside the heat hits me again and I make a quick beeline to my car.

Next I get gas for the car. But of course I don’t just get it without feeling self-conscious again. I pick the pump with no one on my left and the pump between me and eye contact of the person at my right. Again I keep my head down and avoid contact.

I get home, unpack, and cool down in the house again. Later my husband takes me out for the rest of the supplies I need to get at a couple of other grocery stores. It is still really hot outside. I have to walk further to get in the store and I feel my cheeks begin to burn from the heat. We get what we need and again no one says anything to me nor my husband. Next grocery store same thing. My cheeks burn, I feel warm after being in the store for a while, no one says anything. My husband thinks the trauma to my face like the bruising is probably causing the discomfort feeling in the sun for my cheeks. This isn’t going to be a good week. I’m suddenly heat sensitive like crazy apparently.

After we get home I unpack my stuff again. Later in the day I prepare for returning to work. I’m really not looking forward to being out and about now between the bruises and the heat. I’m wishing I had some cloth to put over my head and wrap around my cheeks to protect them. It might also hide the bruises from a casual glance. I still get tired out during the day and I’m not sure if I’ll have the energy to do a full day of work. Though leaving early is pointless as the midday heat will fry me. It’s supposed to storm tomorrow so hopefully that’ll bring down the temperatures to something I can tolerate better right now. Well here goes nothing. Back out in the public eye and looking all the worse in that daylight sun.

Monday..

Thanks to lack of decent wholesome sleep via my prescription pain meds, I was unable to even attempt to return to work.

I’m still having pain brushing even as gentle as I can be around the left side of my mouth with the bottom left being the worst. So I called the office when I was more awake in the afternoon about it. They said day 3-4 is the worst so it’s normal. Well technically this is day 5, but I have no energy to discuss it. I was reassured that they’ll go over how everything is going on my Thursday afternoon appointment.

Meanwhile I’ve sworn off lortab. It’s just ibuprofen now. I’m doing my best to manage through the pain. It’s mostly tolerable. I get headaches, especially on the side of my head. I’m assuming that’s due to pain from the jaw. I know I’ve clenched my teeth a few times. I may even be grinding in my sleep with all the stress. The bruise on the left side of my face is almost always hurting me and the ibuprofen isn’t helping with that. The bruise as spread out both up my cheek and down to my neck. So it’s quite painful over a large area. My sinuses on my left side along with my left ear hurt too.

I had to pick up some sneakers I had to special order. Turns out I have really wide feet. So I get dressed to go out. I wear my Fruits Basket shirt of Kyo that says “Fits of Fury.” If I’m bruised to heck, might as well poke fun at it. I get a bit motion sick on the ride there. *sighs* I’ve been having nausea every time I lie down to sleep and when I wake up, along with stomach pains. I can’t figure if it’s the pain meds or the antibiotic or both. Anyway I get to the shoe store and I’m very self conscious about my looks. I keep my eyes down, ask for the shoes, get them, and leave. When I get back home I get back into my pjs. So much for my romp outside.

More light scratching of the bruised areas going on. I weigh myself and I’ve lost about 7 pounds since the last time I checked. That’s not good. I worry my exhaustion is a sign I’m not getting enough calories in me. One heck of a diet, just don’t eat anything solid. I have to keep pressing on though. I’m not sure how well this is healing up and if it doesn’t go well my molars may be in trouble.

I look forward to bed without weird nightmares. I actually have a hard time drifting off to sleep. I suppose my body is used to the medication helping with that. My stomach begins to hurt again which doesn’t help either. Sleep comes and I do have a bad dream, but at least it kind of made sense. That’s an improvement. It was an extension of my worries of when I ride the train again into work.

I decide to take Tuesday off of work as well. My energy reserves are just non-existent. I need another day’s rest and more time off that damn lortab under my belt. Plus I’ll need the day to see if I can manage getting around by myself again.

Sunday..

At least two, if not three times I woke up in the middle of the deep deep sleep lortab gave me by gasping for breath. Each time I resisted going back to sleep, dreading the next time I’m startled awake feeling like I’m not getting enough air. I tried to wait it out as long as I could awake so that less of the medication would be in me. I didn’t do too well. So I awoke poorly rested and hating this pain medication.

I asked my husband to call the office of the oral surgeon to explain what was going on. I could hear a bit of the conversation on the other side of the call. It wasn’t an allergic reaction. Yes but it was a very very adverse one IMHO. The doctor suggested to take half of the pill and then wait an hour. If I still had pain, take the other half. All of the medicine hitting me all at once was probably causing me trouble. I could also up my ibuprofen to 4 tablets at once. Not that taking that much will help my stomach I bet.

As far as food went we tried some mix that was supposed to be pumpkin soup. It was more spice than pumpkin. Neither one of us could finish our bowls. That’s soup # 3 that failed us. We batted zero. So it was more mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, yogurt, generic jello, and shakes for me.

The pain got worse and I was forced to take a half lortab during the afternoon. Though I got drowsy I forced myself to stay awake. I hate that damn medicine now.

I spent the day in bed. More applications of the ice pack. Though by now it was past the 48 hours recommended. I figured it couldn’t hurt.

Later that afternoon I spied my reflection in the mirror. I now had a good size light bruise on the right side of my face. The one side that was less swollen, the one that was healing better. Sigh. Plus both areas began to itch. It’s hard to scratch something that’s so tender and painful to the touch. Again I’m hoping the scratching means healing. The bruise on my left side is still nasty and spreading. Oh joy. It hurts by just existing there on my face. Hurting when I turn to the left or lower my chin. It looks like something socked me there. More unpleasant thoughts of looks I’ll get when I return to work, taking the train in, flood my head.

I just keep remembering that each day that passes is one day closer to this being over. One day this will be just a memory. I’ll forget the pain and look back at these posts wondering how out of it I was.

In the evening I take another half of a lortab to help keep the pain at bay through the night at the suggestion of my husband. I am a bit chilly, so I grab my nearby hoodie and put it on for the night, pulling the hood over my eyes. I’m still sleeping sitting up in the bed. I’m not asleep long, 30 minutes to an hour at most. I have a terrible nightmare and actually wake myself up with my own screaming. I’m panting, covered in sweat, and feeling very warm. My husband asks if I’m okay. I answer that I don’t know. And I didn’t. I take off the hoodie and toss it to the ground. I sit there panting, trying to stay awake as long as possible. As the medicine pulls me back to sleep I swear to myself that I’m building a new tolerance to pain. I’m just taking ibuprofen by itself from here on out. To hell with the lortab. That medicine is being put on my “I don’t care. I’m never taking it again” list.

Saturday..

No one talks about the third day. Now I wonder and suspect why..

I woke up realizing all of my pain killers had worn off while I slept. So it was the battle to stay fairly asleep vs the pain waking me up more and more. Oh that was not fun at all. I also don’t like taking painkillers on an empty stomach so I had to down something substantial so I could take the medicine.

A bruise had finally formed under the left side of my chin. I wasn’t terribly surprised. That side of my face had been more swollen. Despite using an ice pack repeatedly over the past two days, the bruise finally appeared. And it’s nasty looking. I’m thankful now I’m not going out of the house. I’m not looking forward to the stares, startled second looks and the like when I start working again. Both cheeks are nice and tender to the slightest touch. The right one was starting to itch, so I hope that means it’s healing. There’s not a bruise on the right side of my face yet.

I finally noticed the stitches in my gum. I first discovered it after eating mac and cheese. I thought some food was stuck between my teeth, but looked to see a stitch. The teeth before the spot of the surgery on my bottom left are very tender and hurtful to even a gentle tooth brushing. I’m not sure if that’s normal. I had been rinsing with warm salt water since Friday hoping it’s helping with the healing. But with the bruise, new pain, and this tenderness I’m not so sure. I shudder to think what all this stitching means and how much work they had to do to my gum to pull out that tooth. Ugh.

Today’s food choices had broadened to mashed potatoes. I had tried some mac and cheese Friday night and enjoyed it. Amazing how much you enjoy something smooth like that after having liquids before then. I had another generic jello as well. My food options are pretty limited still and I wonder if I’ll lose or gain weight.

Since the bottom left area is getting nice and tender it’s starting to become difficult to swallow. The motion of it seems to irritate that area just enough to cause it to hurt. That’s not good. Meh. I’m waiting for this to be over.

I’m also realizing why everyone advised that if I needed all 4 of my wisdom teeth out to get it done all at once. I can’t imagine going through this twice. I don’t like the nausea, the weird dreams the lortab gives me, the pain, all the icing, etc. I’d rather go through all this misery just the one time thank you very much.

Resting, eating, icing, sleeping, taking meds.. my daily schedule isn’t that exciting. I’m not even sure if these blog posts are making much sense with how out of it I am between exhaustion and medication. I hope I’m semi coherent.

Friday..

So I had went shopping Wednesday late afternoon. As I looked for food I could have, a woman there said I had the look of someone who had too many options. I jokingly corrected it’s the look of someone about to have their wisdom teeth removed. She recommended to ice the areas like crazy the first day to keep swelling down. As so I did on day 1 as much as possible when I wasn’t feeling very ill.

Now comes day 2. I had been forewarned by several sources that day 2 is sheer hell. The dental meds wear off and you have to take ibuprofen and the prescribed pain-killer. Although as I looked ahead to this day I thought pain was a better choice than nausea. That day 1 was more hellish with just how really ill I felt. At least with pain you can take medication to deal with it. With nausea you can’t get anything down.

I took a Lortab at 6pm on Thursday. Let me tell you this stuff is something else. It gives you very weird dreams. Now you may recall some dreams you’ve had that made you go, “What the heck was that about?” You thought how it didn’t make sense. Well it’s worse than that. Not only do they not make any sense, you dream stuff that just isn’t logical. And your mind seems to jump all over the place. I had the passing thought of that perhaps this is why some people feel compelled to get high or hammered to allow their muse to work. I wasn’t proud of the thought, but I had it. If this is what I needed to get my muse going, I could go without it. I can tell how out of it the medicine makes me, and thus I don’t like it.

By the instructions I got I’m supposed to take 3 ibuprofen first. If that didn’t work, then the Lortab. Unfortunately this didn’t help me keep track of when to take what. (I also had to take penicillin every 6 hours.) Times get out of kilter and get spread further apart for each medicine which makes it that much harder to remember. Then after the Lortab whacks me out of it, it’s hard to remember anything. As the day progressed it became more difficult to remember when I last took what. I was also more tired Friday than I was on the previous day. Exhaustion and mental confusion is not a good mix.

Now I had received the advice of staying ahead of the pain. Well this is hard when you have the problem I described above. Also the pain level goes from about a 2 out of 10, manageable, to quickly getting worse. I wasn’t in that area in between low and okay this hurts now for very long. Eventually I learned the pain was so bad that the ibuprofen alone couldn’t handle it, so I had to take the Lortab at the same time. But that lesson didn’t come until I was completely confused over when to take what and had to “reset” myself to a time when I could take all of the medicine together. And I got into quite a bit of pain waiting for that reset time to arrive.

I actually did get myself out and about a bit this day during the afternoon. Storms were planned to come through during the evening so I wasn’t looking forward to waking up in the middle of the night to either the weather radio or thunder. Out of all my days since the surgery so far, this one at least gave me enough energy to leave the house. (I’ve pretty much been bedridden after it though.) I couldn’t really have anything to eat out, but at least the outside air and warmth helped cheer up my spirits.

So from my experience I can say, try to stay ahead of the pain. It won’t be as easy as people say or suggest. Try to set alarms or reminders when to take your meds next. Oh and taking it on any kind of food helps your stomach. But don’t be too hard on yourself if you miss your time to take your pain medication.

So day 3 consisted of some time out, figuring out what to take when, and taking naps. With the exception of the pain I experienced waiting for time to “reset”, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Oh, and yes there was more icing of the areas.