Wisdom teeth removal and 9 months of braces

Hello bloggers, sorry for my lack of contact recently. I moved house a couple of weeks ago and we've only just got the internet.

So, 21st December was 9 months. Nothing exciting to report in terms of teeth movement, I'm sure it's all much the same but I will put up some pics this weekend anyway.

On a slightly more exciting note, I had my top wisdom teeth taken out on 15th December. Although I'd already had my bottom ones taken out, I was a bit worried about the top ones just because it's only a local anaesthetic...i.e. you're awake while they do it! I was expecting it to be much worse than it was! I was expecting loads of people all around me, hacking away at my teeth for ages, but it was nothing like that!

I just went into a room in the department I usually go to for my normal orthodontic appointments, and there was just two women - the surgeon (not my jaw surgeon) and a nurse. The surgeon explained it all to me, and showed me the x-ray of my face and where my wisdom teeth were. She explained that the piece of bone between your top jaw and your sinuses is really thin, so there was a small risk of her making a hole through to my sinuses when she pulled them out, but she said that was unlikely.

She gave me two injections in each side of my mouth. They hurt a bit but I didn't care as long as I was numb when the teeth came out! Straight after she said 'ok we'll just test if it's numb yet', and I was thinking 'already?!' I couldn't believe the anaesthetic could work that quickly, but she poked my gum with a metal stick and I couldn't feel anything, so it obviously does work that quickly! So she started with the tooth removal, and it was so quick and simple! She just used the pokey metal stick to kind of prise it out, and then she had some plier type things and pulled it out of my mouth, but it was already out of my gum by then so it was more picking it out of my mouth than pulling it out with the pliers. It took about 10 seconds. I couldn't believe how quick it was, and all I felt was a tiny bit of pressure, but nothing horrible. The second tooth was fine as well, although I did hear a bit of a cracking noise on that one!

After they were out I just had to sit for 5 minutes with cotton wool in my mouth. She said that because of the thin bone between the mouth and sinuses (which she luckily hadn't made a hole in), I should try not to sneeze or blow my nose for two weeks...so I wasn't best pleased when I got a cold a week later! But she said if I did need to sneeze to do it through my mouth, so I just had to do really big loud sneezes and put things up my nose to clear it rather than blow it! She asked if I wanted to keep my wisdom teeth, and I thought I might as well, so I said yes. They're now in a pot in my room...I don't really know what to do with them! I can't believe how mouldy they were! They were already going brown and I must've only had them a year or so at the most. According to my dentist, my teeth are very susceptible to decay, and that was definitely evidence of it!

But all in all, for anyone having their top wisdom teeth out, don't worry about it, it's not scary or horrible, and I didn't have any pain, swelling or bruising after. I wish I'd be saying the same thing after jaw surgery!