Yup, Working Out After Oral Surgery Sucks

By Erin Sian

So, how long until I can work out again? This was the number one question I asked everybody about having my wisdom teeth out. I asked my friends. I asked the nurse who called me two days before. I tried to ask the dental surgeon immediately after, except my mouth was full of gauze. Mmahghgehhh? Workout? They all told me basically the same thing. 3 - 4 days, but the longer I waited the better it would be.

Doing the math, that meant if my surgery concluded at 2pm on Friday, then I'd be fine maybe by Sunday morning? No, said my boyfriend. Monday morning? Nope. Ok. What about Monday night? That's a full 3 hours after the 3 day mark! Well...OK.

When it was time I was still achey, but confirmed that YES, I'M STRONG ENOUGH TO GO! And it did start out just fine. I had tons of energy in the warm up, and even mistakenly did an extra round of reps. I made a point to drink some extra water. Strength portion was ok...but I noticed my wisdom teeth area was beginning to throb in a new, special way.

I would've called it quits but the actual workout was "only" six minutes. So because I'm a genius, I figured if I took it kind of easy then it wouldn't be that bad. An ascending ladder of continuous burpees and box jumps, I got this! Oh. God. Each jump rattled my precious teeth holes. Each burpee felt like a lifetime. About when I thought I was going to die, I heard the coach say, "halfway donnnnneeee" in the echoey world happening outside of my throbbing head.

I got my workout in. And proved I'm a moron, evidenced by a night of lying lifeless on the couch, completely wiped out and in need of a full rest day to recover.

So yeah, listen to your doctor. They went to school and shit, and you're good at Google.

Photo Credit: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 / By Ninja M.