My story is pretty funny.
I had my braces out by my sophomore year in high school. Got the wisdoms out freshman year of college. They hadn't quite broken the skin, but they were a little impacted, so my dentist suggested I get them taken out. (I have the BEST dentist EVER, no joke.) Went to the surgeon for a look-see and then maybe a week later was the actual appointment. When I was sitting in the chair, they hooked me up to the pulse monitor while I was reading a magazine, and my resting pulse rate was already 50-something. They hooked me up to an IV (I told them to put me out completely) and when I started relaxing the machine started beeping like crazy so they had to unplug it.
The procedure was quick and when I woke up, I was so fucked up on the drugs (a mixture of some cousins of valium and morphine), I think I just stared blankly the whole way home.
Fast forward past a nap, and some fluid ingestion, and I woke up feeling amazing. I drank an entire bottle of Gatorade and then ran up the stairs to the kitchen where I started drinking some more water. According to my mom and my sister, I made a weird moaning noise and slumped forward and out of my chair in the kitchen. I woke up as the paramedics were coming up the stairs. I declined the ride to the hospital in the ambulance, so my parents took me. Upon exiting the car, I threw up all the water and gatorade, as well as the soup I had eaten, and 4 neat little blood clots about an inch long. GREAT, now I had 4 dry sockets.
The paramedic who came in to hook me up to a saline IV was a complete moron. He jammed the needle in my left arm and then I heard him say, "Aww shit. Here man, hold this towel real quick. I found a better vein." So I hold the towel on my arm as he pulls out the needle. So he sticks it into my right arm instead. Now, my veins are defined enough that I could stick myself without restricting the blood flow at all, so I don't know what his problem was. When the towel came off, it had a blood spot about 3 inches in diameter.
So I spent the rest of the day in the hospital taking in fluids, and the whole time I was napping and thinking about how much of a waste of time it was. Of course I was dehydrated. I could drink water and be fine, and I learned my lesson not to spring up off the couch and then run up two flights of stairs. My mouth never hurt either. (I've had dental work done since I was around 7 [first tooth pulled] and it's never hurt. Orthodontic stuff never bothered me either.) I think I get it from my dad, he's had teeth drilled with no anesthesia. I ate steak that night. And the next day I sold my full bottle of vicodin to my roommate for $15.
I got dry socket once when drinking through a straw, but nothing serious... just a little blood.
