It's All About Teeth, Teeth, Teeth
I went to the dentist today. Due to first a long spell of no insurance, and then a spell of bad insurance that did not cover a dental visit (and the fact that when you have to work shitty retail due to the economy, $80 out of pocket is like a ten-hour shift at your shitty job), I hadn't been in a couple of years
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My dentist (being in the UK, and NHS to boot, i.e. state-subsidised) is really quite hands-off. He always says to me that the best thing for keeping wisdom teeth happy is to rinse with salt-water (in preference to mouthwash preparations) if they ever feel sore etc. Sounds like the decayed ones really have to go, but maybe that cheerfully-cheap remedy might help the remaining ones?! ;-)
Re. anaesthetic for dental procedures, I'm sure the trend has been moving towards local rather than general for a while now. General anaesthetic is, after all, a *big deal* - over here there were some horror stories a few years ago about things going really wrong with dentist-administered general anaesthetic. :-/ I know I'd avoid it if I could!! Also, I thought that often in dental treatment they put the pain-relief in the patient's control?? That way you only get as much as you need/aren't left in more pain than you would voluntarily bear.
I'm sure if your dentist is any good, they'll do all they can to accommodate your wishes, within reason of course! >_<
Good luck and I hope it won't be too complicated/painful. ^_^
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They're starting to move to the hands-off plan over here, but my dentist is fairly old-school and we talked about removing them in 2006. (No, actually, he talked about removing them, and I said I wasn't going to have it done because at the time, I had no insurance and I certainly didn't have $2000-$3000 to spend on what would have been unnecessary surgery, as both teeth were intact then.)
The lower one on my right side hasn't even erupted yet. I am rather abnormal why not :D
Over here, wisdom teeth are extracted by oral surgeons rather than dentists, especially because impaction in bone is often involved; there's some overlap involved, but very few people are qualified as both. (Can you imagine the medical/dental school debt? XD) General anaesthesia is a big deal here, or should be, but I was perusing oral surgeons' websites last night and a lot of them prominently advertised it; I suspect this is market-driven rather than otherwise XD
It probably won't be so horrible once I'm in the thick of things, but unfamiliar experiences tend to make my imagination run wild. XD
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