I just found this newsgroup this morning and have been searching for
information relative to my question(s), but I keep becoming distracted by
some of the . . . amusing! . . . posts.  Please excuse me if this has been
answered and reanswered a thousand times on here, but I really have looked
for pertinent information.  I started with over 6000 unread posts and have
now scanned through roughly half of them, and feel that I should just risk
asking a redundant question if I'm going to have any chance at a timely
answer . . .

I had my wisdom teeth (all four of them) removed last Monday, June 27.
Nothing terribly complicated, although my lower left one was impacted enough
that it took more "vigorous" removal efforts on the part of my oral surgeon
than he had expected.

I've followed all the instructions to the letter.  Today is Monday, July 4,
however, and I'm still having quite severe pain.  This may be due to my
"advanced age" at the time of the extractions (I'm 37), and is probably due
to the fact that my pain threshold is so low as to be non-existant, but . .
. I'm a little worried.  Well, enough worried to be considering bugging my
dentist on the July 4th holiday when I have an appointment scheduled for
tomorrow afternoon!

When I called the office Thursday to ask for a refill of my pain meds since
the pain was not easing off noticeably, the staff member to whom I spoke
seemed surprised that I was still experiencing pain at all.  (I was a little
surprised myself that she was surprised, because . . . well . . . people had
been hammering and chiselling, etc., in my mouth a few days before, which
seemed to be something that might tend to cause a substantial amount of pain
. . . )  We went over the signs of dry socket again, which did not seem to
fit my situation.

Typically, I've managed to have something like this come up over a long
weekend.  My impeccable timing as far as scheduling minor surgeries, giving
birth, etc., seems not to have failed me in this case.  What I'm really
wondering is whether there is any reason to bother my poor dentist today,
when I know that he is enjoying the holiday with his family, especially when
I have an appointment already scheduled with him tomorrow.  It seems
completely ridiculous, but . . .

I HURT.  A lot.  I'm trying hard to only take the pain meds at night when I
must sleep.  It's been bad enough, though, that I took one an hour or so
ago.  Yikes.  It's a sad trade-off to either be itchy and groggy from pain
meds or to have my jaws/gums/places-where-my-teeth-used-to-be.

Again, I feel I should restate the fact that I am a total weenie as far as
pain is concerned.  I have a low tolerance, but I do feel that I went into
this with a reasonable idea of what to expect.  I did not expect this.  This
is worse than recovery from childbirth, though.  Far worse.  Do I have dry
socket and just not realize it?

Now that I've spent a couple of hours reading through this group's messages
and trying to put together a coherent post under the influence of vicodin .
. . my question is . . . normal pain?  Abnormal pain?  Abnormal enough to
bother my dentist on a holiday weekend, less than 24 hours before I'll see
him tomorrow?

Thank you for any advice or information you can give me on this subject.