One of my wisdom teeth is fractured. My dentist thinks it's best to just get them all out now, and I saw an oral surgeon yesterday who concurred.

Problem is, my current health insurance does not cover dental and does not cover oral surgery, so I'm paying entirely out of pocket. It's going to be expensive; I have resigned myself to that. But how expensive? Herein lies my dilemma:

• Base price for extraction of all four teeth, plus the office visit: $968.


• It will be $385 extra, on top of that, to be fully sedated so that I am sleepy.


• If I want to skip the sedation but have a bit of laughing gas on top of the local anesthetic, that's $89 extra.


• If I chose to go with just local anesthetic, I will pay nothing on top of the base price.

So how painful is it, really? The nitrous oxide and/or sedatives are meant to control anxiety, not pain; it's actually just the local anesthetic that controls the pain and that is always applied, with or without sedatives.

Am I anxious? I don't think I am. I've had teeth out before, and it's been no big deal. And it sounds like my wisdom teeth should be pretty easily extracted, since they are all mostly grown in and easily accessible.

But I don't know anyone who's ever had their wisdom teeth out and NOT been sedated.

Would I be stupid to choose not to be sedated myself?