Laughter as Man Still High From Dental Surgery Forgets 'What Dogs Are'

A man still delirious from the pain medication administered following major dental surgery appeared to briefly forget what a dog is.

In a video posted to TikTok in August under the handle @famous.ld, LaDavian King can be seen reacting with a mix of terror and confusion to the sight of his pup.

The clip was filmed while King was recovering from having his wisdom teeth removed. At the time of writing, the footage has been watched over 14.5 million times, with viewers left in hysterics at King's response.

Wisdom teeth removals are common enough. Patients will often choose to have them excised because they are painful, impacted or have grown in an irregular way.

Whatever the reason, having them removed will have little long-term impact on the patient. This is because wisdom teeth are today considered by experts to be vestigial structures because of changes to the human diet and the way we look after our teeth.

The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Science Line said: "Until quite recently, our diet included mostly very coarse food, as well as impurities such as dirt and sand. This coarseness would abrade teeth so significantly that they would take up less space in the jaw."

The experts added: "Permanent teeth were also frequently lost at an early age, which would create more space in the jaw. Because the diet was so coarse and hard to chew, the jaw itself would develop into a larger bone because of this constant workout. All of these factors would create more space for the wisdom teeth when they came in."

To combat the painful nature of the procedure, patients are administered sedatives. In some instances, these will take the form of benzodiazepine-based drugs. In even rarer instances still, these can impair memory and the capacity to think clearly.

This is down to the effect the drug on neurotransmitters in the brain, leading to confusion, occasional chaos and, in the case of King, blind terror at being greeted by your dog.

"What the hell is that?" he can be heard to say on the clip as he looks down beside his bed at the dog that has come to comfort him.

A friend gleefully filming the interaction can be heard laughing from behind the camera as King cowers away from his pet, who appears desperate to come up and say hello.

The canine eventually succeeds in climbing up on the bed, prompting King to let out a scream that soon has his dog scampering off out of the room.

"Me not know what dogs are after I got my wisdom teeth removed," an onscreen caption reads, with King describing the footage as "the funniest video."

Viewers appeared to agree. "They so little I'm crying," one user wrote, with another commenting: "this is beyond me." A third posted, "he's fighting for his life," while a fourth added: "why is this the funniest thing ever."

Newsweek has contacted King via TikTok for comment.

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