However, many years later, I experienced excruciating tooth pain due to air pressure change [1] while flying to the US and then while subsequently driving through Yosemite. The pain was so bad at one point I had to stop driving and the prospect of the flight home was not fun. The cavity was exacerbated by my avoidance of dentistry following the wisdom teeth. The dental injection when I got home was nothing compared to the prior tooth pain so I started properly going to the dentist again. A root canal procedure several years later involved injections that were virtually pain free so I now don't stress about the prospect of an injection at all (except perhaps for the few seconds when the dentist is about to insert the needle).

For me, the change is due to 1) improvements in procedures and 2) a general lessening in personal squeamishness as I've got older. Any injection at all when I was younger had the potential to make me faint but now I can even watch the needle during a blood test or similar. YMMV.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barodontalgia

Basically the roots look like this at first || and after they get settled in, they're more like this: _/\_ and at that point getting them out WILL suck.

So if you have any family history of your wisdom teeth being f'd up, get them removed as soon as possible. My top two wisdom teeth were out before I even noticed the dentist was doing anything.

Then I got stupid and chickened out, waited too long, and the bottom ones were an hour each to dig out piece by piece. Not fun.

Of the remaining two, my top left one is fully 'through' but at a slight rearward facing angle. I don't know if that is normal or not. The other (my bottom left) is 99% still under the surface, and like another commenter just said, is sideways orientated with the top of the tooth facing the front of my jaw. What sucks about this tooth is that because it's slightly erupted I do get food caught between it and my rear molar so I have to be very thorough when cleaning. It doesn't move at all (it's been like this 20 years now) or hurt, so I just live with it.

Here in the UK simple tooth extractions tend to be done with just local anaesthesia via injection into the gum[2]; Only the more complicated removals end up in hospital as a general anaesthetic based operation done by a Ear-Nose-and-Throat specialist.

The pain only really hits once the anaesthetic wears off. Tooth pain is one of the worse kinds of pain I think. It only lasts a few days though as the mouth has an amazing ability to heal compared to other parts of the body.

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[1] I also had a largish mole on my brow removed as a freebie at the same time. Bonus!

[2] UK Dentists don't use gas.