Braces at 30 – Two baby teeth removed as an adult

Posted on 9:02pm Monday 7th Mar 2016

My experience having two baby teeth removed at age 30

I did it.

Oh gosh.

As I was sat waiting at the dentists today I was looking out the door at the beautiful sunshine thinking this is it, my last chance to run for the door and go. I sat twiddling my thumbs, tapping my feet and getting super sweaty palms. I was so nervous!

Today I had my two baby canine teeth out. This is in preparation for my top brace which is being fitted this Thursday morning. I’m beginning my journey for perfect teeth as mine are blooming awful. You can read about the whole journey here.

The dream I had Friday evening didn’t help. The dentist pulled out the wrong tooth first, so I ended up with three teeth out and it flippin hurt (in my dream).

Before I went in Ben reassuringly patted my leg. I don’t think I’d spoken much on the way so he could sense I was nervous. ‘It can’t be as bad as childbirth, right?’ I asked him! So after sitting for five minutes in the car I went in.

Once called into the dentist’s room there was no going back! I was kind of worrying it would hurt, a bit more worried she’d pull the wrong teeth out and even more worried about how I could possibly face doing the school runs with teeth missing!

We confirmed which teeth about 3 times and then she got cracking (I realised the pun as soon as I just typed that. Ha). She injected anaesthetic in the gum at the front of the first tooth which I barely felt at all. Next it was injected behind the tooth and this stung and pinched, but not awfully. It was totally bearable, a million times better than I had imagined. I then swilled my mouth as the anaesthetic dripped onto my tongue and it tasted foul.

Next she did the two injections to my other tooth. The back one hurt way more on this side and I made a little ‘agh’ noise! This time the anaesthetic went right down my throat and I could really taste how disgusting it was. I went to swill again, but my top lip was so numb now that I just dribbled it all straight back out! I made a joke about it and did actually find it quite funny. They’re used to it I’m sure, they could have warned me!

She poked all the gum areas. I couldn’t feel a thing in three areas, but could slightly still feel in one, so she started with the other tooth. I didn’t really see what tool she used (I must Google), but it was out in one pull! The next tooth took a bit longer with a couple of crunching sounds/feelings (I couldn’t tell which) and around three pulls.

That was it. Done.

I didn’t feel the pulling, crunching or twisting or whatever she was doing at all. I’ve had anaesthetic once before in my toe and I could still feel them cutting my toe, just it didn’t hurt. But today, I couldn’t feel anything whatsoever. It’s definitely taken away any fear of the dentist I still had from being a youngster!

She shoved a couple of cotton wool type things in each gap and said to press my lips together. I couldn’t feel a thing so had no idea if I had my mouth closed enough! She explained what to do for the next 24 hours, but I was in such a daze with the whole thing I didn’t really listen. Luckily they gave me a piece of paper with the instructions on.

I rang Ben and somehow asked if he was outside. Because I couldn’t move my lips it came out all slurred! My top lip felt all tingly and numb and as if it was ginormous. It wasn’t, but I couldn’t move it. The anaesthetic took a good three hours to wear off and I felt relieved when I could finally use my mouth as normal! In the car home I kept trying to talk to Ben and dribbling! Very attractive!!

I was expecting my mouth to hurt once the anaesthetic wore off, but there’s no pain at all, perhaps because the teeth were so small. They were baby teeth. Amazingly they’ve been in my mouth since I was a one year old. I find that fascinating! They asked if I wanted to keep them and somehow understood my ‘keep them please’ in a muffled cotton wool filled unmovable lip mouthed voice!

Now I have two gaps, 3^rd back on one side and 4^th back on the other, both at the top, but they’re not toooooo obvious when I talk, so I’m not panicking about the school runs anymore.

I’m definitely excited to get my top brace on Thursday and really start my journey to perfect teeth. It’s really really real now!