Wisdom Teeth Removal

Andrew Byrd

Andrew Byrd

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FlyingByrd
Im due to get all 4 wisdom teeth removed on the 28th, I’m just curious how long until I’m legal to fly.

When I went to get my medical, I told my AME that I have allergies, and he told me if I were to take one Benadryl then I needed to wait 10 days to fly because so many half lives needed to pass. What kind of time frame will I be looking at after wisdom teeth? I’m assuming I’ll be on some kinda strong meds after the surgery.
 
Depends if you take the meds. Sound you will. Everyone reacts differently to pian medicine so who knows. Just start back when you feel up to it.
 
Every recovery is different, too.

Mine, all 4 back in high school, knocked me backward for about a week with swelling, pain, nausea, you name it.

My wife, all 4 as an adult, got home and asked, "What's the big deal?" I had to check to make sure her doc actually did anything.
 
The FAA recommends a wait period of 5x the long side of the half life of the medication. The "long"half life of Benadryl is ~ 13 hours.

If you know what pain med's you have, you should be able to look up their half lives.
 
Yeah didn't affect me much when I had them removed at 20. Actually drove from Moody AFB in south GA to ATL to drop a fellow airman off to catch a flight and back to Moody.
 
Wisdom teeth weren’t much fun for me. Had bleeding for a couple days afterwards and really didn’t feel like doing much for about a week. Pretty strong Tylenol III since some bone had to be gouged out with associated soft tissue damage. That was on the lowers, the uppers were a piece of cake.

Anyway you can always ask the treating doctor about how long the medication effects will last. A call to your AME office with prescription info will probably get a response on how long to wait.

Best wishes for a painless outcome.
 
kyleb said:
The FAA recommends a wait period of 5x the long side of the half life of the medication. The "long"half life of Benadryl is ~ 13 hours.

If you know what pain med's you have, you should be able to look up their half lives.
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Thanks, that’s exactly what I was looking for. I’d seen a lot of people saying whenever I feel up to it, but if that was the case I’d fly the next day after taking Benadryl, and I’d still be taking Zyrtec, but since both are antihistamines I would hate for something bad to happen and that’d be ruled the ‘cause’ of whatever outcome, even if it was a good outcome. I’ll check with the docs on Thursday to see what kinda crap they’ll have me on.
 
Depends on how it goes. If all goes well and you manage pain with only OTC meds you can fly soon. If you get dry socket then you'll definitely want the good meds and you won't want to fly anyway.

Agree with the others about the half lives of meds.
 
I had all four pulled at once and didn't take pain meds at all afterward. I went home, rested and let the sedatives wear off, then went to a movie...

The doctor who pulled them was a retired Navy surgeon and was Eisenhower's personal dentist. He knew what he was doing!
 
I did the Michael Jackson nap and really didn't have any effects after recovering from the anesthesia. I suspect the key is just about as with anything else: when you feel you are recovered from the procedure and whatever you took in the process.
 
Out of curiosity, is there any reason why you're getting all 4 removed? Nowadays dentists don't remove wisdom teeth unless they are causing pain, irritation, or infection.
 
I had my wisdom teeth removed about half way through my private ~30 years ago. I think I was flying after a week.
 
All four of mine were impacting the teeth in front of them, so the chief dentist at the Vandenberg AFB hospital, a bird colonel, pulled both on one side and two weeks later pulled both on the other side. He explained it was done that way so I could chew food on the side I still had them while the side where the first two were removed healed. I was a 21 year old E-4. I don't recall taking any pain killers. There was some swelling for a few days, but that was it. I was a student pilot taking lessons through the VAFB aero club, and don't remember it interrupting my training.
 
I recall being down for a day, then back to work and I took pain medicine. Work involved moving 2 ton torpedos around, the doc wouldn't let me come back until he believed I was ok. It took all of 5 minutes.

Everyone's different. If they have problems pulling them, it will probably be harder. For me, 3 came out super easy, the 4th snapped off at the root and they effectively had to use a screw extractor to pull it out.
 
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