Aftercare is extremely important with wisdom teeth, extractions, and other oral surgery procedures. Depending on the location and difficulty on your wisdom teeth, Dr. Bowen will prescribe you various medications to help with pain, swelling, and other potential complications.
Immediately following your appointment, you should place ice packs on your cheeks near the areas of your procedure. You should ice throughout the day, with 20 minutes of ice, followed by a 20 minute break. This will help reduce the swelling to the areas. You should discontinue ice with 24 hours following your surgery. Extended icing may cause you to have difficulty opening your mouth. Once you have reached the 24 hour mark after your surgery, use heat packs on the same locations that you were icing. This will promote blood flow to the areas and increase healing.
During the first 3 days following your appointment, you will likely be sore and in a fair amount of discomfort. This is normal, and you will have the proper medications to control your pain. One week after your appointment, you should start to feel and improvement. Two weeks after your appointment, you should have little to no discomfort. The extraction sites can take 30 days or longer to completely heal.
It is important to keep the extraction sites clean. One day following your appointment, rinse your mouth with warm salt water to help flush out an debris and keep the areas clean. Avoid straws, spitting, or any activity that can bump your jaw. Avoid smoking and tobacco products, as they slow healing and increase the possibility of complications, such as dry sockets.
If you should experience a dry socket, they typically arise 5-7 days after surgery, but can be earlier. Dry sockets occur when a blood clot forms in your extraction site, and is lost prematurely. This commonly happens by using straws, spitting, smoking, and getting bumped in the jaws. Dry sockets are notorious for causing severe pain that isn’t controlled by typical pain mediations. Should you have a dry socket, call our office immediately, and we will place a mediation in the extraction socket to help alleviate your pain. This will help the pain, and may need to be changed once or more at the dental office during the healing period.
Other complications may arise, but are lessened when following our post-operative directions and keeping the extraction sites clean.
If you have any questions or anything seems abnormal, please do not hesitate to call our office at (801) 224-6051. Thanks for choosing Canyon Dental and Dr. Bowen as your dentist in Orem, Utah!