Getting wisdom teeth out wasn't that bad for me. My teeth were a little sore (sorta like getting braces for the first time), and my cheeks swelled up a tad, but nothing else happened. I was playing in a tennis tournament three days later, so it obviously wasn't that painful or long-lasting. It was weird being knocked out, though. One minute the doctor was telling me that I would be getting sleepy, and the next minute I woke up about a half an hour later. I don't remember falling unconscious, and apparently I woke up earlier than I remember and I babbled about wanting to leave.
As for braces, I've had them twice, along with two expanders, three retainers, rubber bands, and invisalign. Basically: my teeth are impossible. I got both expanders and braces when I was in fifth grade, and my teeth got straightened, and they gave me a retainer for a while. Then my baby teeth fell out and I had to do it all over again.
Recently, my orthodontist has messed up teeth in every way possible. I broke a brace off one of my teeth, and he told me to ignore it. Then, the teeth around the broken one pushed in front, so that the one tooth was behind the others. To fix it, they strapped a spring between the two side teeth and an elastic band to pull the back tooth forward. Then they gave me only one rubber band, which I wore religiously. I wore it so much that it turned my entire mouth sideways. What the heck? So then they gave me the other band and told me to stop wearing the first. I wore the second one until my mouth was straight again (2 days), and then never wore it again because I didn't want my mouth to turn the other way. The orthodontist congratulated me on wearing the band so well...
When I finally got my retainer, my teeth suddenly shifted (even though I wore the retainer all the time). He said it was probably the retainer that did it. So I got Invis-align because I didn't want braces again (in reality, I didn't want anything, and my parents made me get it). The orthodontist told me I could eat with it in, so I did. Except the food stuck in the invisalign all day caused my teeth to rot and get bleached bright white in small patches, surrounded by tan color. Another what the heck. So they've finally fixed all that and I have a retainer again. Except my teeth still aren't exactly straight. Whatever, I'm not doing that crap a fourth time.