K.Buck

O.K. So today my dentist says to me that I’ll need to have my wisdom teeth removed before next summer. Does anyone know what this will do to my playing? Has anyone gone through this? Have any of you ever tried playing when your lips are on Novocain? I’m not sure that would work.

Double_G

I don't know what it will do to your playing, but bless your heart. Getting your wisdom teeth out isn't fun...

Chris4

I had this done a few years ago. You probably wont be able to play for about three days. After that, I was fine and didn't see a difference in my playing. This may be different for you depending on your teeth structure, embouchure, etc but I don't think it'll make much difference. Good luck.

Chris

Alex Yates

I went through this in the summer of '96, but for me it was a bit more complicated. If you are visiting a dentist regularly and this has just come to light, then you will be fine. Like the others said, a few days and you should be back up and running. DO NOT....I repeat.....DO NOT put this off.

I had flare-ups of pain and discomfort with my wisdom teeth for years, but it would go away and I would forget about it. Long story short, they managed to find their way into my mouth, cutting through at an angle and crowding my bottom teeth over time. I also had an asymmetric situation brewing because I only had three wisdom teeth coming in, not four. The one on my upper left side did not exist. This caused uneven shifting and muscle development as well. I kept putting this surgery off because I was either working full-time or going to school full-time and did not want anything to "interfere" with my progress (even though it was because I was in great pain most of the time). It got to a point where I could not open my mouth fully without that wonderful TMJ jaw *POP* and if I extended it that much, I had to go through the pain again trying to close my mouth. I have a very small oral cavity and with the wisdom teeth being impacted into my jaw bone, this experience stopped me dead in my tracks.

I finally had the three extracted and it took a MONTH before I could play again. I ate jello and soup for two weeks (great weightloss program LOL). My gums were stretched out so much after the extractions that my surgeon had to stitch the loose flappy gum skin to the gums of another tooth further down the row. For a couple of weeks I was also pulling out (spitting out) bone shards from my jaw bone on the lower right side.

On the bright side.....LOL......I was on pain killers for 2 weeks that made me literally drool. I couldn't do much and I had a little time on my hands, so I learned HTML way back when and made my first website. I look at my site now and its age is showing (like I made it with crayons ). I am preparing updates, but it is just very time consuming and I am not drooling in front of the monitor like I was back then. LOL.

ANYWAY - I share this with you because I strongly urge anyone approaching this bridge to cross it early and get it done and over with. And even if is a more serious operation like mine was, it is not the end of the world. All was fine when I started up again.

Good luck!

dizforprez

Having my wisdom teeth pulled in college was one of the best things to happen to my playing.

I took the two weeks off( which I would have been fine after one) and started back up, but since I had not played in two weeks I treated it like I was starting over and I actually followed a practice schedule for the first time in my life.

If you let yourself heal, it will be like starting back after a few weeks off, that will be the only negative effect.


Do not play it you have had novocain.

MahlerBrass

I had all four of mine out this summer, not a fun experience, but it had to be done, specially seeing as how there's no more discomfort in that area. Usually you'll just have to lay out about a week and you're back to playing, if you have your teeth impacted (sideways), then it's a lot more complicated. All of mine were impacted so they had to do actual surgery as opposed to just yanking them out, the swelling didn't go down all the way till about three weeks after the surgery, but it's over and I can play my trumpets again without any worries, other than those we all need to work through