What kind of anesthesia did you get for removing your wisdom teeth?

40 comments

1. I think most of those videos are legit. They put me totally under. When people wake up, they are going to be out of it.

2. I don’t know. All I know is that I wasn’t doing much talking after my wisdom teeth extraction. I was there for two of my brothers’ wisdom teeth extraction and they mostly just slept.

   And no, YouTube shorts aren’t reflective of life.

3. They are true to SOME CASES, not everyone gets knocked out and not everyone gets a local it is up to the one performing the procedure.

   As a rough rule of thumb they’ll likely knock you out if:

   A) they are coming in completely sideways and some of the jaw will have to be removed to get to them or

   B) removal is necessary on a person who is likely to have trouble being calm and still through the procedure and risk complications, kids being a common example.

   If you’re not one of those, chances are you’re getting a local.

   I was in group A, with 3/4 requiring bone removal to get to, so I got knocked out but I also know several people who got locals for it.

   Not everyone is goofy when they come out either, some just sleep til they have their faculties back or sit around groggy. Those don’t make good videos, though, so you won’t see them posted.

4. I don’t know, other than it was injected into my arm and I passed out within a minute of that, and only woke up in the car a couple hours later. Fun times.

5. General via the mask.

   I “came to” walking through the parking lot of the oral surgery office, with one of the technicians waving at me from the steps and my wife ordering me to the car. Apparently I had been telling a lot of stories in the recovery room and was really determined to keep talking to these ladies. It felt incredible for about 30 minutes until the pain started. The next 3 days were largely spent on the couch.

   I took ONE of the Oxycodone pills they gave me but it made me so loopy and out of my head I preferred to deal with the pain with OTC stuff instead.

6. I was fully asleep like a typical surgery. I never got “high” or anything. Just slept through it and then woke up. Mostly I was just pretty drowsy in recovery.

   My dad stayed awake and got more of a lower grade anesthesia than I did (we had ours out on the same day). So he was kind of hyper instead.

7. They put me to sleep for mine. Worked out great! One minute I was asleep, the next minute I woke up with a mouth full of gauze and blood! Oh wait, that sounds terrible. Anywho, I was completely lucid afterwards, but my dad had a penchant for acting silly after being on the Goofy Gas.

8. I just did novocaine and it was fine. Didn’t hurt a bit and wasn’t zonked out the rest of the day.

9. They gave me a shot or something and told me to count backwards from 10. I fought it as much as I could, got to 8.

   I have no idea what it was. Sodium Pentothal maybe?

10. Lidocaine injections which hurt like hell.

    I was wide awake the whole time. The worst part was the *sound*.

    > Do those shorts I watched depict reality of the effects after having the teeth removed or are they false?

    They do not depict the reality of what most people experience having their wisdom teeth removed. Most people get local anesthetic like you and I did. For those who do opt for full anesthesia, most of them just wake up groggy. In some rare cases, they are more cognizant as the anesthesia wears off and might act high – so people film it because it’s funny.

    Then you watch the video on social media, and the algorithm shows you more because it thinks you’re interested and engaged.

11. I had laughing gas and something that makes you forget. All of mine were impacted. It was done at the dental surgeons office, if I had wanted to be knocked out I would have to go to the hospital.

    Apparently I had a blast. I was shouting “woohoo!” The whole time, my mom could hear me in the waiting room. They had to shut the doors in the office lol. The last thing I remember was talking to the surgeon. He was friends with my dad, and he said “I saw your dad at the grocery store the other day”. I said “yeah, hes fat” and laughed but immediately felt terrible and begged him not to tell my dad I said that.

    I don’t remember anything after that. The next thing I remember is being belligerent walking back to the car. My mom was asking me if I needed help, I said no. She opened the car door for me, I shut it and then opened it myself and got in.

12. They put me under because my wisdom teeth were impacted. I remember seeing the ceiling melt, and then waking up after it was over.

13. I’ve had lidocaine and novocaine injections for not impacted, partially impacted, and fully impacted wisdom teeth. I also had one taken out with no anesthesia because it wasn’t reaching the area and I was sick of being there 🙃

14. My daughter recently had hers removed. Her wisdom teeth were impacted and they put her under full anesthesia to remove them

15. According to my chart, I was given Propofal. I had all 4 removed and one close to a nerve. I was tired but I wasn’t loopy. That stuff was wild. I was out in seconds.

16. I got local anaesthetic (novacaine)

17. I had very localized so I was fully conscious and chatting while they were doing it. It was running out by the last tooth so that hurt more but overall easy

18. I don’t know what they gave me. I walked into the office, and woke up four days later.

    My husband says he basically woke me up, poked a pain pill in, and I went back to sleep.

    That was years ago and we were following their instructions, but recovery was pretty simple because I slept through it….

19. One thing I noticed when my son had his wisdom teeth removed – is how young the dentists now recommend that the procedure occur.

    When I had mine out, me and my peers were usually late teens (like 17/18). The dentists was talking around 15 now getting my kids’ removed.

    They also remove the wisdom teeth before they emerge from the gumline, which may may a difference why the different anesthetics are used.

    Both me (in the late 90s) and my son (more recently) were a bit out of it when we had them removed (under general anesthesia). But the effect goes away fast (within 30 minutes we were perfectly fine). Mostly just a bit loopy at first and have memory loss/keep repeating stuff because you can’t remember anything.

20. I had general. I’m not sure if it was _required_ in my case, the surgeon made it sound like that’s just how it’s done.

    _By the time I was around other people and could have been video recorded_, I had been in recovery for a while and was coherent if still slightly fuzzy. It’s possible I was utterly deranged before then and don’t remember it, but nobody except medical staff would have seen that either.

    My wife had hers out with local, as you described. I wish mine had been done that way, I was pretty stressed out about the general anesthetic and would have preferred to just deal with some discomfort.

21. I got Demerol. It didn’t make me loopy, but the only thing that ever has was a Morphine IV when they were setting a broken leg.

22. Most people I know had general anesthesia or at least more than novacaine. I was shocked when my dentist offered to pull my wisdom tooth (only 1 needed to come out) right there in the office with novacaine. Then he was shocked- said “Oh no” and started sweating bullets- when the tooth broke on him and he had to spend the next hour digging around in my gum. Did some nerve damage that took months to resolve. Fun times… but it was cheaper than going to an oral surgeon.

23. Conscious sedation, aka twilight sleep, delivered via IV is common for wisdom tooth removal in the United States. The patient is technically awake and able to respond to verbal commands but is completely relaxed and will not retain any memory of the procedure. Conscious sedation is effective for oral surgery because it maintains a patent airway and can be safely managed in an office setting. Patients coming out of conscious sedation can behave in amusing ways, so the videos you’ve seen are probably legitimate.

24. Had mine removed last week. I couldn’t talk right away because my mouth was numb but I definitely wasn’t as high as some of the people in those videos.

25. I got a local.

26. Laughing gas + topical anesthetic to numb the outer tissue, then injections to get completely numb. Was a long process to get completely numb. They had to cut mine out because they were still below the gums and would cause problems coming in.

    The experience was just a warm, fuzzy, banana flavored dream for me (gas tasted/smelled like bananas I thought). I remember suppressing giggles when they cut into the gums and I saw blood splurt into my dentists face and he had to wipe some off his glasses.

    Then a glorious week off school while taking lots of vicodin and playing video games. That was a good week.

27. Sedation is normal for tooth removal in the US, normally conscious sedation (you’re not fully unconscious, but sedated and will not remember the procedure)

    In the US, wisdom tooth removal is frequently done prior to the teeth actually emerging, whereas in many other places dentists wait for them to cause problems.

28. I had to get oral surgery anyway so I was totally unconscious. They just removed my wisdom teeth while they were at it.

29. I’ve not had my wisdom teeth taken out but my brother has and he was put under for his. Apparantly he said some off the wall things and tried to fight his reflection. He is normally pretty docile, but that made for a hilarious story.

30. I was offered the choice between local or general anesthesia. I chose general. Put me out baby!!!

31. I got mine removed by a US Army dentist. He just used local anesthetic that didn’t work. As he started pulling I was like “not working” he called me a pussy, stuck him self with a needle and said, well I guess you’re right, must’ve gone bad, you’re still a pussy though. He got some that worked and proceeded to dislocate my jaw. Jokes on him, I didn’t have to go out on patrol for a week.

32. I had level 2 “twilight sedation” when getting all 4 removed, one of which was broken at the gumline and had to be removed surgically. I was completely incapacitated, so my MIL had to drive me home, stopping by the pharmacy to pick up 10 Oxycodone and 30 Vicodin.

33. When I had my wisdom teeth out they gave me a choice between local (nitrous oxide + novocain) or general anesthesia. I opted for local which was a huge mistake, it was extremely stressful and scary – even cutting through the laughing gas – to have these guys drilling in my mouth. They had to crack my wisdom teeth too and extract them in pieces which was extremely unpleasant to listen to. None of this hurt but overall the experience was very unpleasant and I wish they had just put me under.

    Anyway laughing gas can get you pretty high so that’s probably what you’re seeing.

34. I got valium, some kind of numbing shot, and laughing gas. I remember it all but I was definitely feeling no pain and I was out of it but not completely loopy afterwards.

35. I’m not picking on you OP. This is just a pet peeve. You mean “anesthetic.”

    Anesthesia is the state of being caused by the drugs they give you. Anesthetic is the drug given to you to cause the anesthetized state.

36. My wisdom teeth came in normally for the most part, so I only had local anesthetic (I was asked if I wanted to be sedated and I said no). While I could feel my teeth being worked on, the worst part of the experience was definitely the dozen shots I received prior to the procedure.

37. I had 4 teeth removed before I got braces (age 12 or 13). I was given nitrous and local anesthetic. The oral surgeon DID NOT wait long enough for the local to take effect, and ignored when I told him to stop. I was held down by at least 3 people, and had 4 teeth pulled while I felt everything.

    As you might imagine, this was traumatic. There is absolutely no way in hell I will go through an extraction awake ever again, and I will never use nitrous again. I need anxiety medication to even have a cleaning done, and avoided the dentist for many years.

    For 2:3 of my wisdom teeth, I opted for IV sedation. My extractions were uncomplicated–the teeth were fully erupted. I was only having them removed because they were rotten. The sedation didn’t really mess with me, I was just really tired for the rest of the day. I also learned that Vicodin (which I didn’t really need for the pain afterward) makes me projectile vomit, so that was fun.

    I have 1 wisdom tooth left. It’s also fully erupted, and it’s staying in my mouth until it causes a problem. I’m hoping to find an oral surgeon who will fully knock me out with propofol and not use conscious sedation. It wears off more quickly and has fewer lingering effects.

38. > US American

    This isn’t a real demonym by the way. We don’t use this.

39. I had general, just blinked and it was over though.

    If I said anything dumb no one told me

40. Why is everyone saying US Americans on here all of a sudden? Stop it, get some help.

    To answer your question, it’s usually a local anesthetic these days.