I found this story while checking out the headlines at FoxNews.com. It's this kind of risk that always made my mother only let the dentist use a local whenever I or my siblings had certain dental work done.
I've been going to the dentist pretty much as far back as I can remember, likely beginning in San Antonio when I was maybe 5 years old. Back then, it was just the standard cleaning. As I got older, there were the typical cavities to be filled. I always got irritated that I brushed better than my older brother, but he never had as many cavities as I did. Then, I had to have braces and something called a "tongue crib" to help correct a bit of an overbite (the dentist - a fabulous pediatric dentist) thought I had been a thumbsucker when I was little, but that was not the case. Over the years, I went to the dentist regularly.
When I was in junior high, my mom had to have her impacted wisdom teeth removed. The dentist told my mom that her kids could likely have the same problem with their wisdom teeth later in life, and to consider having us coming in to have them removed. So, I first had one removed. Oral surgery - my wisdom teeth had not yet erupted, so the oral surgeon had to cut through my gum to remove it. Local, so I was awake for the whole thing. This dentist did good work, and the only thing that bothered me during the procedure was opening my eyes and seeing a needle on a suture coming out of my mouth... Later, I didn't have fun times with the narcotic they prescribed for the pain - made me feel like my head was being squeezed in a vice...
The next time I had the oral surgery, I had an appointment with a different dentist (I was an Army dependent and went to military dentists, so you didn't always see the same one every time). They decided to take all three remaining wisdom teeth at the same time. Nothing like hearing the dentist ask his assistant for a bone file and hearing lots of cracking and crumbling taking place in your mouth. Somewhere, we have that first wisdom tooth that was removed. There wasn't any tooth to give me after that second oral surgery...
My brother wimped out after one wisdom tooth being removed...
Anyway, like the young man in the news story, I don't breath through my nose. Whenever I was having the work done to correct my overbite, the dentist would take molds of my teeth. I had the hardest time with that: I had to think about my breathing, and breath through my nose while the mold was being taken - otherwise, trying to breath "normally", through my mouth, I would start to gag on the mold form. I never considered that being a mouth-breather might be a problem had I ever been put under general anesthesia for dental work. Just something to think about...
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