Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5 & 6

I wanted to kind of put together my journey on this as I go, in hopes that maybe getting this stuff out will help those who are scared (like I was, though I'm more scared of the pain than the dentures themselves) about getting dentures and what to expect so far. But just a reminder - this is what I experienced, not everyone is going to be the same.

TL;DR - It hurts like a mfer, ice packs to your face are the best thing ever.

Side Note: I had u/HeadMucketyMuck even send me a private message about his wife's Youtube channel called mylifemysmile that was also a HUGE help, so thank you again for sending me that. I highly recommend it to the rest of you, she goes through and answers a lot of questions people have given her. So please, go subscribe, go support her.

Now to the story!

First, a little backstory: I had not gone to a dentist in awhile because bad things kept happening and I didn't want to be judged for allowing my teeth to just fall into disarray. I did not want to go back to my "regular" dentist because he gave me root canals that weren't warranted and would do a bait and switch on me. They would bring me paperwork, tell me which tooth they were going to work on, I'll owe a certain amount. I would agree and sign the paperwork, but then when the dentist was done, they tell me "Oh, it ended up being a completely different tooth that's much harder to work with, so you owe this much instead". It was ridiculous, plus I couldn't afford the crowns he wanted to put in place (usually $1,000 per crown). Hard to pay for that sort of stuff when you're only making $10/hr at the time.

Day 0, the day of extractions and initial dentures:Again, it had been awhile since I had gone to the dentist and I wasn't about to go back to the one I had been using. I ended up going to Aspen Dental, it's kind of a chain dentistry. I don't know how many there are out there, but it's a judgement free zone and the dentist I worked with was amazing. She went through things a bit fast but that was understandable, she was the only dentist at the location and they seem to have a pretty good influx of patients. But I was told I had less than 20% viability left in my teeth, so dentures would be a good route to go. If I wanted to keep my teeth, they offered to let them work on them and see if they can correct anything, but in the long run, dentures were cheaper than trying to figure out the upkeep of what I had left.

I went in for extractions & my initial dentures. I'd been in previously for them to take impressions, because they have an in-house person who does all the dentures, so that was handy. They had a new dentist working with them that day who will be moving to another branch of Aspen soon, but he was also really nice. Everything actually happened in a 2 hour window. I was in at 3PM, out at 5PM with everything extracted and new temporaries put in.

My Aspen Dental has the foresight to give you prescriptions before the procedures - 2 antibiotics, a steroid packet, a prescription for some hydrocodone, as well as a few Valium that I was supposed to take before the procedure. My husband had to drive me, which was probably for the best. I wasn't super woozy because my medication tolerance levels but better to be safe than sorry.

So we got in and honestly, them trying to make sure I'm numb took longer than the actual extractions did. Again, I have a high tolerance so it took a lot of jabbing to make sure I was numb enough. And boy was I ever numb! I couldn't tell if I was opening my mouth wide enough or not but I guess I did okay. I could take breaks if needed by raising my left hand (if I'd raised the right, I would have smacked the dentist in the face). Once I was finally numb enough, he dug right in and I'd hear cracking and some pressure, but he got everything out, which seemed amazing to me in such a short period of time. Of course, I had to ask to see my teeth because I'm curious like that and the nurse showed me the cup full of my teeth. He got our roots and everything but apparently there are pieces that can still show up from time to time. He put in dissolvable stitches on some of the bigger holes, but I didn't need too many. They immediately put the new temporaries in and I'm to wear them for 24 hours. They also gave me gauze to bite down on (but not too hard) on both sides to help soak up the excess blood with the hope of blood clots forming to help stem the flows. I was also told I had to sleep with the temporaries in that night to help with the swelling a bit, which ended up being super uncomfortable.

We then got home and I was doing okay for a bit, but then the pain started setting in and it was absolutely horrid. My face had swollen up, my temporaries were starting to hurt, and of course, all the blood. I thankfully had 3 cheap ice packs from Dollar Tree I keep in the freezer to rotate between and those were an absolute lifesaver. I also have these tasty yogurt smoothies and some strawberry kefir that I drank because I'm not confident in trying to chew anything yet. Plus I needed the probiotics due to the antibiotics messing with my gut flora. So those got me by for now. I am very far from confident about trying to actually eat anything, since I can't quite tell if my teeth are meeting up correctly or not.

When we got home, I got on the computer for a little bit to play some games, really hoping to distract myself, but as the numbness left, the pain became greater and greater. I took a few hydros (again, tolerance levels) but I separated them out to at least 1 an hour and in the end, I only took about 3. But then it was starting to cause a horrendous headache/migraine, so I decided to just go to bed and see if I can sleep through it. I almost wasn't sure I was going to be able to, but they did give me 4 pills of Valium, so I popped one of those, which felt super weird, trying to swallow a pill - not sure if it's going to make it to the back of your throat because the dentures are in and it almost doesn't feel like you can open your mouth wide enough. Plus there was still some numbness going on, which didn't help either.

I found my top fits pretty well (suction for the win!), but my bottom likes to float off. I was going back the next morning, and they'd make some adjustments, shave some spots down and it's super hard to figure out if something is hurting because I'm swollen and sore or if the temporary is really just that sharp on a certain areas. You know those dental X-Rays they give you when they image your bottoms and you get to stick that lovely piece of plastic behind your bottom teeth and it cuts into the area under your tongue? That's how my bottoms were feeling, all the freaking time. Again, not sure if it's normal or if I'm just swollen. But I do have an appointment the next morning for them to look at everything and make adjustments.

Again, honestly not sure if this post helps the newbies out there, the ones that are scared or unsure about the process, etc. Please let me know either way, so if people want to hear more, I'll be happy to keep putting my progress out there, otherwise I won't bother with continuing. Thank you!