One of the items in my to-do list this year is to extract my lower right wisdom tooth. It already had 2 fillings, one of which came off last year, and a quarter of the remaining tooth was broken twice. The dentist advised me to extract it way back in 2010 but I refused as I was on maternity leave back then. I kept postponing it as I thought the procedure was scary, costly and the tooth did not feel painful anyway.

And then I made up my mind to take care of the tooth for good by extracting it yesterday evening. First I was given jabs to make the surrounding area feel numb. Then an x-ray was taken. And I was asked to swallow 3 types of pills: painkiller (mefenamic acid), antibiotics (amoxicillin) and serratiopeptidase (to reduce swelling), each 2 tablets. Then the extraction followed.

It was quite fast, done in 10 mins or so. The whole procedure took 30 mins. The scary part was when the dentist pulled out the tooth by force and realized that one of the roots was left inside the gum. And also seeing the ugly black string used to sew up my gum.

As it was considered a simple case, I paid the least amount possible for the so-called surgery: $650. The cost ranges between $650-$950. I guess the complex case is when the wisdom tooth is still buried inside the gum, and the gum has to be cut open, the tooth cut in half, then taken out one by one.. *shudders*

The bleeding continued even until this morning. I will need to take antibiotics and take not-so-solid food. On the menu: porridge, soup, bean curd, yoghurt and ice cream plus 5 days MC. And come back to take off the stitches in a week's time.