:help:
I need to get my other wisdom teeth out soon! I got one pulled by some quack, and i almost past out, so i figure i should get a general anesthetic to knock me out good and pull the other three. the doc said it’s dangerous in taiwan so if you’ve done this or know a place to do it please let me know!
Give me the gas!!!
mike
I had all 4 taken out under total anesthetic since they grew sideways instead of up/down, at a German hospital though. Had to spend a whole week in there (for recovery).
If it’s not necessary I would not recommend it but rather opt for 2 outpatient treatments (one side at a time can be done I have been told).
Some people here recommended a dentist near CKS Memorial Hall, do a search for that.
I need to get my other wisdom teeth out soon! I got one pulled by some quack, and i almost past out, so I figure I should get a general anesthetic to knock me out good and pull the other three. the doc said it’s dangerous in Taiwan so if you’ve done this or know a place to do it please let me know!
Give me the gas!!!
mike[/quote]
It’s been eons since I had this problem. But anyway, I got all four taken out in one session, under local anesthetic. Wasn’t that bad during the actual operation, but couldn’t talk for a week. You do need a competent dentist though.
regards,
Robert
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I have had 3 of my wisdom teeth out: two abroad and one in the China Medical University Hospital in Taichung. The one in Taiwan was a tricky one with hooked roots; that’s why my dentist sent my to a consultant in the hospital for it. He did an excellent job. Although it took a while to extract, there was no bruising. For the other two, there was slight bruising for one, not for the other.
I think general anaesthetics should be avoided unless really necessary. They’re not that great for your health.
My wife had her wisdom teeth pulled out here with no anesthesia whatsoever. They were simply rotted and were not impacted or anything like that, but still. The doc just got the pliers and pulled, really hard.
General anesthesia is scary stuff. The good news is that once you’re going under, you don’t give a hoot. Still, I don’t think general anesthesia for wisdom teeth is necessary unless there is a lot of cutting and deep extraction involved. Avoid if possible.
Yeah, but once you wake up you do. Felt miserable afterwards for a day or two and my face was swollen, showing all colors of the rainbow.
I’ve had wisdom teeth removed on two occasions in Taiwan. Local anaesthetic - no problem.
It was so easy and painless that I asked my brother-in-law doctor in UK why it is that in UK you have to have general anaesthetic to have your wisdoms pulled. He said that it’s not really a problem for the upper jaw, but when you’re messing about with the lower jaw there are plenty of things that can go wrong. He pointed out, for example, that it’s necessary to check that a major nerve in the lower jaw is not damaged during the extraction. If it does get damaged then your whole face can be seriously f**ked up. It’s not common but there’s always the potential. UK dentists obviously play it safe, but then there are risks associated with going under. What about in the US?
If you do go for general anaesthesia, make damn sure you have a good experienced anaesthesilogist doing it, not some effete nurse. The anaesthesilogist is the one who will keep you alive and save your life if you get into trouble.
[quote=“Spack”]…in UK you have to have general anaesthetic to have your wisdoms pulled. He said that it’s not really a problem for the upper jaw, but when you’re messing about with the lower jaw there are plenty of things that can go wrong. He pointed out, for example, that it’s necessary to check that a major nerve in the lower jaw is not damaged during the extraction. If it does get damaged then your whole face can be seriously f**ked up. It’s not common but there’s always the potential. UK dentists obviously play it safe, but then there are risks associated with going under. What about in the US.[/quote]My dentist in the UK was a professor at one of the top teaching hospitals. I had two wisdom teeth out with her; one upper, one lower. Had only local anaesthetic for both.
I really don’t think a general is necessary in the majority of cases.
I had a really bad experience with my last wisdom tooth extraction…
After checking the initial X-ray, the dentist said “This is very bad”. I should have ran out at this point, but I figured how bad could it be?
We started at 9am and he started with the hammer at 9:15. This was continious until 10:30 at which point I was on the verge of passing out. I asked the dentist how much longer he needed and the answer was “2 more hours”. The look on his face told me that he was in way over his head and had probably never performed an extraction of this nature (deeply impacted). I weighed my options, jaw throbbing and said “Put a stitch in it, I’m outta here”. Jumped on the Freeway and headed up to Linkou with a half extracted wisdom tooth. While parking the car, the novacaine wore off and it became, well, rather painful. After an excruciating 2 hour wait, the dentist finally saw me, probably a bit alarmed with the facial swelling and the blood trail I left going into his office. The only word I could utter at this point was “please” while staring at his syringe.
The head dentist in Chang-gung extracted the remainder of my tooth in 20 minutes with no construction tools involved. I had massive swelling for ten full days from all the hammering.
It took 3 full months for the bone shards to stop sprouting from the damaged jawbone. The last piece I pulled out at home was nearly a centimeter in length…Fun.
Choose your Dentist carefully.
If you have wisdom teeth that are hooked, crooked or otherwise not coming out, I suggest avoiding your local dentist and instead going to large hospital. Most “local” dentists don’t have the experience to deal with complicated cases, as Michael has shown. I know that Linkou Chang Gung has an excellent dentistry division. The Taipei one is a bit less experienced but should still be very good.
Apparently, it’s common to do general anesthesia when doing wisdom tooth extraction in the US/UK. I haven’t heard of anyone having it done that awy in Taiwan (probably because of the cost).
Also, a suggestion is to bring along an ice pack so you can ice your face after getting the wisdom teeth out(it reduces the swelling immensely).
Given what people have said about Taiwanese attitudes toward painkillers (they seem to think that only a drug addict would want them), I would suggest getting the tooth pulled damn near anywhere else on the planet, including Rwanda, Somalia, or the Soviet Union.
I was lucky; I only had one wisdom tooth, total. The dentist (in Chicago) pulled it in a brief operation with no complications under a local. Once that local wore off, and despite liberal doses of Tylenol-3 (with codeine), I was in excruciating pain for three days.
I just ran into a bit of the Taiwanese “painkillers are for addicts” crap on Saturday. Suffering from a blinding headache (the onset of a really miserable weekend), I had to go to FIVE FUCKING PHARMACIES in this benighted hellhole before I found one that had ASPIRIN(*). And forget the convenience stores, their medicinal stuff is limited to eight brands of condoms.
Aspirin was NT$70 for a pack of ten. First-world country, my left asshole. Even the “children’s dose” stuff that people take to ward off heart attacks is NT$30 for ten.
In the U.S., aspirin is about NT$30 (including tax) for a bottle of 100 tablets. And it’s available even in the most dismal reeking bait shop in the middle of the Louisiana swamps.
Good luck on the tooth. I took a hatchet to a particularly despicable book (“The World According to Garp”) and chopped it into tiny shreds of confetti. It deserved worse.
(*) Yeah, I know – I could’ve gotten Panadol (acetaminophen), ibuprofin, or powdered tiger rectum (or whatever Chinese medicine says to take). Aspirin is what works on my headaches; the others are fourth-rate half-assed substitutes at best.
MaPoSquid:
You wont find anything for that at the local chemist. Perhaps you should see a doctor? Sounds serious.
[quote=“MaPoSquid”]I just ran into a bit of the Taiwanese “painkillers are for addicts” crap on Saturday. Suffering from a blinding headache (the onset of a really miserable weekend), I had to go to FIVE FUCKING PHARMACIES in this benighted hellhole before I found one that had ASPIRIN(*). And forget the convenience stores, their medicinal stuff is limited to eight brands of condoms.
Aspirin was NT$70 for a pack of ten. First-world country, my left asshole. Even the “children’s dose” stuff that people take to ward off heart attacks is NT$30 for ten.
In the U.S., aspirin is about NT$30 (including tax) for a bottle of 100 tablets. And it’s available even in the most dismal reeking bait shop in the middle of the Louisiana swamps.[/quote]
It’s somewhat of a stretch to believe that you went to five pharmacies that probably had a billion variations of aceteminophen but no aspirin. Maybe they didn’t understand what you were asking for?
Also, I’m not sure if you’ve purchased aspirin in the US recently, but you sure won’t get a bottle for USD $1. Try $5 for a low-dose 100 pill bottle or $6.50 for a bottle of Bayer. Still not quite NT 300, but somehow medicine prices end up sky-high here…
[quote=“answerer”][quote=“MaPoSquid”]I just ran into a bit of the Taiwanese “painkillers are for addicts” crap on Saturday. Suffering from a blinding headache (the onset of a really miserable weekend), I had to go to FIVE FUCKING PHARMACIES in this benighted hellhole before I found one that had ASPIRIN(*). And forget the convenience stores, their medicinal stuff is limited to eight brands of condoms.
Aspirin was NT$70 for a pack of ten. First-world country, my left asshole. Even the “children’s dose” stuff that people take to ward off heart attacks is NT$30 for ten.
In the U.S., aspirin is about NT$30 (including tax) for a bottle of 100 tablets. And it’s available even in the most dismal reeking bait shop in the middle of the Louisiana swamps.[/quote]
It’s somewhat of a stretch to believe that you went to five pharmacies that probably had a billion variations of aceteminophen but no aspirin. Maybe they didn’t understand what you were asking for?[/quote]
Perhaps, although by pointing at the characters on the Panadol box that said “aspirin free” and then holding my fingers over the Chinese for the “free” part, you’d think they might have a clue. They all seemed to. They may not be able to speak a real language, but they’re not stupid. Also, since they managed to get the idea initially that I was looking for a painkiller of some sort, you’d think that gee, maybe my screaming in agony and pointing at my head was enough to get them to direct me to the generic category of “headache remedy” rather than “acetaminophen-containing pain relievers”.
Au contraire, you sure WILL get a bottle of 100 standard 5gr (325mg) tablets for 89 cents plus tax. Even 7-11 in Redmond (Microsoft-land) was 79 cents plus tax as of around 2001, which surprised me because convenience stores in the U.S. generally are double the cost of a grocery store.
Want me to ask for a price check? Maybe if you’re shopping in a Las Vegas resort/casino like Caesar’s, where they provide a moving walkway inbound (but not outbound) and make you walk through a two-mile maze of Forum Shops to get to the exit, they might rip you off for five bucks a bottle, or in deepest rural Alaska where the stuff has to be airlifted in, but not in any normal establishment. I’d even stake a beer on there not being any normal place selling a bottle of plain quasi-generic aspirin, 100 tablets, for over two U.S. bucks. First one to find one wins. This offer limited to the continental U.S., non-employees of Forumosa Inc, offer expires August 31 2004, send photo (digital preferred) to. . . .
I would recommend going to an oral surgeon rather than a dentist to ensure proper removal. I had all 4 taken out when I was about 14 or 15 in Canada. My dentist, although very capable of doing the job herself, suggested an oral surgeon. I was put under general anesthesia and a few hours later I had cotton balls in my mouth. Groggy but painless although I had trouble eating for about a week. My uppers did not pop out yet so the gums were sewn together but my lowers had come out already so it left huge holes which food would fall into. Ever had salt fall into an open wound? I do not recommend tomato soup right after your surgery. Good Luck.
I got two wisdom teeth pulled at the Adventist Hospital in Taipei. Super work. Very professional. I also had a root canal there, and they even gave me a choice of metals. Now, I’m Captain Goldtooth, Arrr, Matey…
I live in the Minneapolis area, and recently, I was able to buy aspirin super-cheap before my trip to Stockholm/Helsinki. I’ll see if I can find the bottle and take a picture of it.
But, for right now, I dan’t find it. It was something like US$ 0.39 or 0.49. I’ll check around for actual prices lately.
that is interesting. i may consider that. what kind of anasthesia did they use?
As my father-in-law (Eye Surgeon) always said “There is a chance you could die during the operation” i.e. sometimes (rarely) an anesthetic can kill you. Chances are… check harvard medical site etc.
I had four done under general in Australia: felt nothing during but it hurt like hell for a week afterwrds. Had a friend who had them out with a local and I thought he was going to die from the pain afterward!
You shouldn’t take aspirin after surgery because it is an anti-clotting agent and you could bleed more than you should. Paracetemol(Tylenol?) is better for you. So is a bottle of scotch. 