I'm disgusted and repulsed and... and I can't look away

February 23, 2009 6:01 PM

This AskMeFi post on what to do with your extracted teeth is completely bizarre - and noteworthy?
posted by lizbunny to MetaFilter-related at 6:01 PM (66 comments total)

"Can you tell I'm still bitter? I AM TOTALLY STILL BITTER." is the odds-on favourite for tomorrow's User Friendly punchline.
posted by gman at 6:09 PM on February 23 [3 favorites]

Okay!
posted by cortex at 6:18 PM on February 23

Wow sixcolors, I'm actually speechless.
posted by ob at 6:20 PM on February 23

Hmmmm, something was deleted, let's be more subtle this time.

He should use those teeth create a porno called "The Woman with Two Mouths".
posted by sixcolors at 6:22 PM on February 23 [3 favorites]

Noteworthiness is not AFAIK a requirement for Ask questions.
posted by jtron at 6:35 PM on February 23

Cavity creeps! We make holes in teeth, we make holes in teeth!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:40 PM on February 23

When I had my wisdom teeth removed when I was 18, I opted for local rather than general anesthetic because it was a Friday afternoon and I wanted to go out with friends later rather than be out of service. That was a mistake, it turned out, because while I felt no physical pain, two hours of cracking, yanking, slurping, bleeding, drooling, and more cracking and yanking really is not the way to go.
posted by Burhanistan at 6:41 PM on February 23

I did as Burnanistan did. There is nothing quite like seeking blood spray and think, "hey, that's mine. Maybe this isn't a good idea."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:49 PM on February 23

I had IV sedation for one of them (oral surgery was involved). Felt no pain and due to the vicodin scrip they gave me, I was on cloud nine for a few days.
posted by jonmc at 6:50 PM on February 23

I won't go under for anything. Personal paranoia, so I was awake for my extractions. I still have my teeth. Off to check the answers!
posted by cjorgensen at 6:57 PM on February 23

Uh, the obvious answer is to sell them to a company that makes cans of spraypaint. Seriously, what the hell else do you think that thing is rattling around in 'em?
posted by turgid dahlia at 7:05 PM on February 23 [8 favorites]

The idea of keeping extracted teeth is not bizarre at all. I have all my kids' baby teeth, stored carefully in airtight jars. Who knows how they may be useful at some point ... 'stem cells' in the pulp, etc. etc.
posted by woodblock100 at 7:09 PM on February 23

Heh, yeah, I keep ears on a piece of string around my neck. Sometimes I chew on 'em.
posted by turgid dahlia at 7:10 PM on February 23 [1 favorite]

I was 13 when the orthodontist took mine out. I never even knew you could have sedation! He cut opened my gums under Novocaine and pulled them out with pliers. He did them all at once, because, as he said then "if I only do half of them, you'll never come back for the other half."

I don't go to the dentist anymore.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 7:12 PM on February 23 [3 favorites]

They wouldn't let me keep mine, and I raised a major stink. My mom dragged me out of the oral surgeon's office screaming "that's part of my fucking skull. IT'S MINE!"
posted by solipsophistocracy at 7:18 PM on February 23 [8 favorites]

Meh.
posted by fixedgear at 7:18 PM on February 23

It's what they put inside whistles.
posted by netbros at 7:25 PM on February 23

I did as Burnanistan did. There is nothing quite like seeking blood spray and think, "hey, that's mine. Maybe this isn't a good idea."

Ditto. Except I did feel pain; the guy shot all four tooth-areas full of Novocaine before starting, and the stuff wore off by the time he got to the final tooth with the chisel and mallet.

He didn't give me protective goggles either, figuring that my glasses were good enough. So I had the pleasure of cleaning my own dried blood, gore, and tooth/bone dust off of them afterwards.
posted by CKmtl at 7:28 PM on February 23

Speaking as a member of a family with a century-and-a quarter unbroken chain of jewelers and former jewelry salesman myself, on behalf of everyone who has every worked in custom jewelry shops worldwide, I'd just like to say thank you all so very goddamn much for handing us your discarded teeth. Whether to make jewelry or just melt the fillings out of your dead uncle's choppers (classy!), thank you so much for handing us your USED BODY PARTS. We all adore it.

YOU BASTARD GUYS.

Also, when you lick your finger to remove a stuck ring before you hand it to us, we fantasize about sticking said ring in a dog's ass right in front of you before handing it back.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:36 PM on February 23 [7 favorites]

When I was about sixteen, I was mucking about outside with a few mates and a football, and I was accidentally kicked in the face, square-on and below my right nostril.
The whole front tooth (maxillary central incisor) popped out unbroken into my hand, in a pulp of blood and spit and grass and chunks of my own gums. For the record, an adult front incisor is about the length of the distance between your biggest knuckles—surprisingly long.




Resisting the temptation to drill a 2mm hole into it and wear it as a necklace was easier than you might expect.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:36 PM on February 23

I once knew someone who wore four of his old teeth on a necklace. It came across as vain in a weird and creepy sort of way. Guy might as well have worn a fedora.
posted by painquale at 7:52 PM on February 23 [1 favorite]

My wisdom teeth came through about a decade or more ago. They don't hurt in the slightest. I asked my dentist what the deal with that was. He said "Some people just have a large jaw." So, there you have it. Data point.
posted by turgid dahlia at 7:58 PM on February 23

Makes chewing koala easier.
posted by netbros at 8:09 PM on February 23

I don't understand why the question was asked at all. Doesn't everyone put them under their pillows and find $1 there the following morning?
posted by terranova at 8:12 PM on February 23

my dentist has been trying to convince me she can remove my top two on her own. I see now I've been putting off the appointment for a good reason... cracking? Yanking? BLOOD SPRAY? SHE NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT BLOOD SPRAY!!!
posted by changeling at 8:17 PM on February 23

I remember during one visit to the dentist's, when I was 14, I was given a head X-ray. You know, the kind where you bite down on some cardboard and this laser gun-looking thing swings a 180° arc, from one ear to the other, aimed at your face. This makes a very cool X-ray of your skullface, where it looks like it's been stretched horizontally. And as the dentist and I were looking at it, he made this crestfallen sigh and said, "Well, I'm not making any money off of you. No cavities, no need for braces, and you have no wisdom teeth." My parents were pretty happy to hear that. I was surprised, to be honest, because I brushed my teeth only if I could see food on them, and I never flossed. I was a pretty gross kid.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:18 PM on February 23

I had supernumerary teeth behind my wisdom teeth and I kept one as my proof of mutation.
posted by Iron Rat at 8:25 PM on February 23

I was born without wisdom teeth, as is every girl on my mom's side of the family. Our dentist was bemused over my mother, but then when my sisters and I trotted in for our x-rays, he was just stumped. I've now concluded we're a hyper-evolved race of mutants who will soon develop venom in our spit and fangs for nighttime blood sucking.
posted by zoomorphic at 8:28 PM on February 23 [4 favorites]

Makes chewing koala easier.

Dude, we blend them first.
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:29 PM on February 23

I've now concluded we're a hyper-evolved race of mutants who will soon develop venom in our spit and fangs for nighttime blood sucking.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe our alien leaders expressly FORBID that we talk about the fangs and venom.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:30 PM on February 23

Here's your local anesthetic survival guide for wisdom tooth removal.

1. Create a 3-hour-long mp3 player playlist full of very loud music. Mine were done before the era of the iPod, so mine was a CD full of SRV and Hendrix's loudest stuff, on repeat.
2. When you get in the chair, put on good noise-canceling headphones, crank the volume and hit play.
3. Close your eyes. Do not open them until it is over. No matter what happens. I am not fucking around, this is pillar of salt stuff.
4. Hit the gas like you're actually trying to permanently destroy your short-term memory and higher cognitive functions.
5. Go to your cave and find your power animal.

I can personally vouch for this method. 2.5 hours in the chair for a procedure that was supposed to be 45 minutes, evidently so full of complications that my dentist personally called me at home that evening to make sure I was okay and said "Man, you're a tough guy" (data point: I am not a tough guy), and I only had a minor bit of unpleasantness. Never heard a single crack, never heard anything over "Manic Depression" other than the whine of the drill.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:35 PM on February 23 [5 favorites]

I'm a little envious of you people who've been gassed. Is it anything like that Yellow Submarine montage Lisa Simpson went through when she went to the dentist?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:38 PM on February 23 [1 favorite]

Being gassed is like the '60s. If you can remember it, you weren't there.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:42 PM on February 23

When I had mine out (with a dentist I had only visited the week prior to the extraction since I was at college and didn't feel like dealing with my parents), I remember getting very freaked out because they didn't explain anything to me before they put the gas thingy on.
(I had nitrous, novocaine, and fairly standard wisdom teeth with no expected complications.)
The doctor and nurse left the room for a while, turned the lights down, and played some of that soothing muzak. The doctor came in a bit later and asked if I was starting to feel light-headed yet. I told him no because I wasn't quite at that point and he took the mask thingy off my nose (it was one of the ones that leaves your mouth free but goes up your nostrils) and held it on my mouth and told me to 'breathe reallllll deep.' I remember him turning one of the valves on some tank and eventually I was all limp.
I remember pretty much everything, but it wasn't bad. It's something I'd like to avoid in the future, but it was fairly painless. It felt weird though to feel the pressure on my teeth and to feel the tugging but to not really be able to focus on it.
The vomiting blood afterwards was suckassed though. That's what I get for lying flat after taking the first Vicodin after getting back to my ex-bf's apartment.
posted by sperose at 8:48 PM on February 23

When I was 12, I got an impacted molar on vacation with my family on the Isle Of Crete. It was agony, so my guardians brought me to the local dentist, famous throughout the Mediterranean not only for his brilliance, but for his passionate and whimsical bent of pure sadism. He was known only as the Moor. He strapped me to a leather artifice stained with donkey blood and braced my mouth open with the edges of a shattered mosaic from the dusty cavern he called his office, while he dug around in my tender young flesh with an giant automated clicking bronze claw of his own design. The only thing dulling my pain was half a load of black tar heroin he shot into my pupil with a dirty syringe, saving the second half for the dwarven cabana boy who washed his instruments with campari and soda every few minutes giggling like a dying hyena. 6 hours passed in black swarms of bone-cracking pain and shame at the bleats of my cowardly pleading. All at once the claw went mad, tearing a hole in the side of my face and attacking the Moor and his helper, removing all of their teeth in a single ripping flutter and crafting itself a horrible little crown! As it draped their skin over its thorax like a tattered white cape, I spat out with the shattered tidbits of my last incisor: "Is this real life? Is this going to be forever?" I'm still waiting, ever waiting, for its reply. I have two fingers.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:21 PM on February 23 [14 favorites]

You poor people. I have all four wisdom teeth and they all grew in perfect.

I must be the only one on this whole website from the anecdata.
posted by internet!Hannah at 10:43 PM on February 23

You American and your fancy gasses and i.v.

Before coming here, I did not even know you could get general anesthesia for dental procedures. I got my 4 wisdom teeth removed just with novocaine, my roots were so long and crooked they had to crack them into little pieces and pull them out one by one. I could feel every single poke, tug, crushing of bone and rending of flesh. The worst part is that I could see everything reflected on the dentist's face shield. Until the blood spray covered it and my eyes could rest. Good thing that in Mexico you can get all kinds of painkillers that in the US are only legal for use on large farm animals.

I took the pieces of molar home and ground them to dust in a mortar. Doing that caused me a very weird whole body sensation. Better than some drugs.

Next time I will tell you all about the time I got emergency surgery for a nasty abscess in my groin (spider bite) where I had to help the doctor pull on 2 of the retractors.

You know what the good thing is about looking into an incision on your groin that goes all the way down to the pubic bone? Your penis looks longer.
posted by dirty lies at 10:58 PM on February 23 [6 favorites]

My mom had four impacted wisdom teeth cut out of her mouth with nothing but laughing gas when she was seven months pregnant with me.

I, learning from her example, prudently waited until my entire mouth was so swollen and painful I could not speak before I had mine removed under general anesthesia by a doctor who retired immediately after the process, presumably because he realized there was nowhere to go from me.
posted by padraigin at 11:04 PM on February 23

internet!Hannah, me too! They meet at the back and I can chew with them just fine.

I guess we're just evolutionary throwbacks, no venom mutation for us. :(
posted by the latin mouse at 11:58 PM on February 23

Make that three. Although why this matters, I have no idea.

Oh, yeah: because I don't have to watch blood spurt out of my own mouth.
posted by davejay at 12:06 AM on February 24

I'm still laughing from sixcolors' suggestion. So hilarious and yet so incredibly perverse.
posted by dunkadunc at 1:21 AM on February 24

Ah, so they don't put you under with N2O alone. There's a vaporized ether in the mask, too. I'd often wondered, having spent a good amount of time "under" recreationally, but never really experiencing anything like an anesthetic effect.

I didn't think to ask for mine when I had them out. I only had two, data point. No bottom ones. So, I'll evolve fangs but not venom, or maybe venom but not fangs. Seeping running nose venom.

My most fun Wisdom Teeth experience was picking up my new boyfriend from the dentist after his were out. If I could be a professional chauffeur for the anesthetized, I would take the job.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:17 AM on February 24

I'm still laughing from sixcolors' suggestion. So hilarious and yet so incredibly perverse.

There's a really horrible joke in the same vein as that comment that anyone who's read Truly Tasteless Jokes probably thought of at once.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:53 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]

I have weird mutant tiny wisdom teeth, far too small for the proper delivery of venom . One of them has actually grown out, and is a third of the size of the molar in front of it. My dentist keeps bugging me to have them out, but they don't bother me a bit and I see no point in putting myself through the agony of extraction unless it's absolutely necessary. Besides, I already have jewelery made out of proshetic eyes, and the teeth would probably, y'know, clash.
posted by louche mustachio at 3:21 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]

I'm still laughing from sixcolors' suggestion. So hilarious and yet so incredibly perverse.

There is a movie called "Teeth", it's a horror/comedy. Not bad.
posted by P.o.B. at 4:09 AM on February 24

A co-worker of mine has a collection of everything that's ever been removed from her person, i.e., tonsils, a bone from her foot, and all her baby and wisdom teeth. I don't know what she has done with this collection, but I keep getting an image of it as a carefully arranged centrepiece on her kitchen table. She has issues. She's adopted and claims that being adopted automatically ruins an adoptee's life, because they never really feel loved and accepted.

I have not kept any of my teeth, nor would I ever dream of making things out of them if had them. And I congratulate myself on these inclinations, considering them a sign of good mental health. But then, I wasn't adopted, so what do I know.
posted by orange swan at 6:21 AM on February 24

I only have two (the uppers), and I'm told by my dentist that they are way, way up in my jaw and never descending. Is that weird?
posted by amro at 6:42 AM on February 24

I have not kept any of my teeth, nor would I ever dream of making things out of them if had them.

See, I was hoping this thread would inspire you to craft the post:
101 Creative Things To Do With Your Old Teeth
posted by gman at 6:43 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]

It makes me happy that the 3rd suggestion is a Great Gatsby reference.
posted by The Whelk at 6:46 AM on February 24

This AskMeFi post on what to do with your extracted teeth i

Well that's no fun. Let me know when we are talking about all the crafty things we can do with other people's teeth that we've collected.

I've been thinking about using them to pave my driveway.
posted by quin at 7:45 AM on February 24

My tiny, tiny jaw is barely big enough for normal teeth, let alone wisdom teeth. Got mine out just a few weeks before leaving for college -- knocked out cold, woke up just enough to be practically carried out of the dentist by mom & boyfriend. Dry heaves all afternoon/evening that could only be relieved by actual anti-nausea meds. No idea what happened to the actual teeth, at the time couldn't've cared less! (Fun fact: 4 of us girls in my freshman year dorm room, all 4 of us IIRC had our wisdom teeth out less than a month before the start of school.)

My crazy hs/college bf, when he got his out, kept them in a shot glass on the dresser. I don't know if he ever made anything with them, though. I should probably send him that AskMe. :)

When mr. epersonae got his out (age 29), I think they had to be pulverized. Otherwise, they would've been perfect to set into wedding rings...since we got married to get him on my dental insurance. (Although not being as wacky as the ex-bf, I don't think that would've been to his taste anyhow.)
posted by epersonae at 9:08 AM on February 24

There is a movie called "Teeth", it's a horror/comedy. Not bad.

Not a new idea.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:31 AM on February 24

Not a new idea.

That doesn't make it any less funny.

There's a really horrible joke in the same vein as that comment that anyone who's read Truly Tasteless Jokes probably thought of at once.

I remember reading those at 15. I bought my first one thinking it would only talk about sex, but discovered how horribly racist, sexist, and homophobic the jokes were.

I'll take a shot though....the joke was something along the lines of...

"A woman walks into a gynocoligist office...
The woman gets up on the exam table...
The gyno says...
OMG THIS IS THE BIGGEST HOOHAA I'VE EVER SEEN!
THE BIGGEST HOOHAA I'VE EVER SEEN!
The woman said, yes I know that, but did you have to say it twice?
The doctor said, well...I didn't say it twice."
posted by sixcolors at 10:44 AM on February 24

The next rimshot will be on your skull, sixcolors.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:53 AM on February 24

OK, that time around it wasn't funny.
posted by dunkadunc at 10:58 AM on February 24

That wasn't the joke I was talking about.

*Sigh* Alright, don't shoot the messenger.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:03 AM on February 24

Wait, I'm confused, is this statement repeated because said hoohaa is it so big that it has an echo, or is it repeated because the hoohaa has teeth and thus by some illogical extension the gift of mimicry?

Why yes I was pondering your platter of pulses!
posted by ob at 11:04 AM on February 24

I had all my wisdom teeth taken out at the hospital under general anesthetic, just before they went in and broke apart my jaw and took pieces of it out. I kind of had an underbite.

I barely remember the wisdom teeth, because whatever trauma was there was quickly overshadowed by the pain and inconvenience of having my jaw wired shut for six weeks over the summer. Bastards 'forgot' to put in a gap in the wires so I could get a straw in there to eat, so everything, EVERYTHING, had to be brothlike in consistency or I couldn't get it through the wire mesh strainer that was caging in my jaw.

I over-eat now, preferring crunchy chewy foodstuffs to anything soup-like or brothy. I wonder why.
posted by sandraregina at 11:36 AM on February 24

When I was in college my friends and I would sing Hakuna Matata, but substituting "Vagina Dentata" for the titular phrase. Now that's in my head. Thanks, y'all.

Also, Google has taught me that "the shark is a mobile vagina dentata cruising the amniotic seas," and I am really looking forward to the day I can incorporate that phrase into casual conversation.
posted by Metroid Baby at 1:21 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]

I had a friend in college whose oral surgeon clamped the tool onto a wisdom tooth and let my friend yank it out of his own jaw. I don't know what kind of anesthetics give you that combo of awakeness without pain or gross-out-reaction, but the story itself scarred me for life.

Several years later, when I went to get my own wisdom teeth out, I told the dentist in no uncertain terms that I wanted general anesthesia. He seemed surprised that I would expect anything different. I also warned him that I was terrified of needles, but he reassured me that I would have laughing gas long before the IV was inserted. So on came the mask, and the doctor made lame conversation while I breathed deep and tried not to be annoyed by his small-talk. Unfortunately, my instinct for a courtesy laugh was stronger than my annoyance, and I faked laughter at his terrible jokes because that's the polite thing to do. It was only as he said, "I think she's ready" and the nurse came at me with a TERRIFYING HUGE IV NEEDLE that I realized he had been testing my response to the nitrous. I woke up 1 second (4 hours) later, shrieking and sobbing "I'm not ready yet!"

I don't offer courtesy laughs anymore.
posted by vytae at 1:28 PM on February 24

Thank you for starting this thread, because now I can tell my "no good deed goes unpunished" story.

A few months back, I helped my friend out who was getting her wisdom teeth removed. Her boyfriend had to be in class, so I volunteered to sit in a waiting room for an hour and then drive her home. So the day arrives, and I spend my hour sitting and reading stale magazines in a oral surgeon's office, then I wheel my very loopy friend out to the car and took her to the grocery store for ice cream and meds. I finally manage to translate her slurred drooly speech for the pharmacist on duty and then we look for a soft foods so she can fend for herself until her boyfriend gets out of class. We were walking down the ice cream aisle when she nudges me and with a crooked smile slips something white and red out of a small envelope. My horrified brain took a moment to register that the little things now sitting less than an inch away from my nose was her wisdom teeth, WITH RED STRINGY MEAT STILL ATTACHED! I'm no fainting violet, but I'm pretty sure I still let out a pretty good yelp, based on the speed with which the other shoppers scuttled away from us. Anyway, I got her some ice cream and apple sauce and meds and then bundled her onto her couch and went back to work. When I called her later that evening to see how she was, she didn't remember any of the trip home from the surgeon. The end result of this is that reading that thread reminded me to not look too closely at her jewelry from now on...
posted by 1f2frfbf at 1:43 PM on February 24

When I was in college my friends and I would sing Hakuna Matata, but substituting "Vagina Dentata" for the titular phrase.

Metroid Baby - you may have been a victim of internets plagiarism!

Unless, of course, you are actually the author of that strip, in which case I am fully prepared to feel stupid.
posted by elizardbits at 1:46 PM on February 24

Oh nooooo, either I got internets plagiarized or I've been drawing a comic in my sleep!
(Or, far more likely, my friends and I weren't the only people to think of it.)
posted by Metroid Baby at 2:03 PM on February 24

Hey, 1f2frfbf, if it weren't for some different details, I'd think you were the friend who took me to get mine out! In some sort of twisted Protestant Work Ethic Mode (you're looking at someone who went back to a tradeshow after falling, breaking her elbow and getting put in an armpit-to-wrist cast, after all), I decided it would be a Good Idea to get something cut off my foot at the dermo in the a.m. and get all 4 wisdom teeth out in the p.m. of the same day. My poor friend ferrying me around for this (and fielding the panicky phone calls from my mom when the teeth took 4x as long as expected), was driving me home, mouth-a-bleedy... next day, she's driving her husband to work when he looks down and says "oh, what's that?" in the cupholder.......

(yes, wad of bloody gauze -- whoops)

She, thinking quickly, grabbed it and pitched it out the window.

My "week of Percocet vacation on the couch" then turned into "catching a horrible cold so I couldn't eat ANYTHING at all because my throat swelled shut," and "massive staph infection in foot wound that lasted for months and left me semi-unable to hobble around."

Note to self: doublebooking invasive procedures on the same day = NOT A GOOD IDEA.

Still want to make the teeth into something, though.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 2:41 PM on February 24

After years of neglecting to go to the dentist, I've had quite a bit of work done lately. My dentist is wonderful -- he's very gentle and I don't feel much of anything. He's done much to allay my fears of dental work, which is what took me so long to go back in the first place.

I need my wisdom teeth out. I know this. It's one of the reasons I didn't go to the dentist for a long time because it's something I have to face. Reading the stories here aren't helping me. I know, that when the time comes, they are knocking me out completely. None of that spurting blood stuff. No thank you.
posted by darksong at 4:36 PM on February 24

I was reading this and the links and thinking "I know I've discussed making jewelry out of my wisdom teeth somewhere..."
And yes, but it was this Ask Me thread: How do I drill a hole through a human tooth without shattering it?
In case anyone wanted more tooth related discussions to read.
posted by batgrlHG at 4:42 PM on February 24