After dealing with a rather significant amount of pain in your mouth, you finally scheduled an appointment with your dentist to figure out exactly what’s happening with your teeth. Once a dentist gets to work and starts checking everything out, it doesn’t take them long to tell you exactly what the problem is: you have a tooth that needs to be extracted.
Compared to other dental problems, having a bad tooth that shouldn’t be in your mouth is particularly painful and inconvenient because of the trouble it brings. Fortunately, these inconveniences and additional pains are guaranteed to stop once you actually get to pull the bad chomper out through the steady and trained hands of a dental expert.
However, the difficulty doesn’t end once you actually get your bad tooth out because more problems can arise after the procedure itself. This is exactly why you must know the dos and don’ts to watch out for after a tooth extraction.
What happens during the procedure?
During this procedure, the main goal of a dentist is to administer the painless removal of a tooth or tooth roots with minimum trauma to the surrounding tissues of an affected part. An intensive level of care and planning is applied during this process so that the extraction socket wound heals without any post-operative complications.
Dos and don’ts to keep in mind
The one thing anyone undergoing a tooth extraction should know is that the effectiveness of the procedure greatly depends on whether or not things pan out properly after the treatment itself. Post-procedure care is an especially important part of getting the right results because it helps prevent complications such as dry sockets, infections, and hampered recovery.
If you’re about to sit in the dentist’s chair to take care of your bugging problem, here are some dos and don’ts to keep in mind so that your recovery pans out smoothly:
DO: Rest
One of the most important things that you need to follow is the doctor’s orders to rest as the first few days after your procedure outline what happens in the long run. According to best practice, the ideal time of rest is anywhere between 24 and 48 hours of not exercising or doing any form of physical activity so that the extraction site can properly heal!
DON’T: Eat solid food
If there’s anything that you should absolutely avoid after a tooth extraction, it’s eating solid food of any kind. When you eat solid food directly after having a tooth removed, you can end up putting debris into the extraction site that can end up picking bacteria and infecting the wound in your mouth.
DO: Warm saline rinses
Your dentist will most likely tell you that you need to keep your fresh wound as clean as possible to prevent any infections, which means that you should do warm saline rinses. By rinsing the inside of your mouth with an isotonic solution, you’ll be able to ensure that the hygiene of your removal site is maintained to the greatest extent possible.
DON’T: Take aspirin
When the pain of the recovery process begins to set in, you may have the urge to take aspirin to manage it better without causing unwanted inconvenience in your day. But this is an absolute no-no. The reason you should avoid aspirin after a tooth extraction is that it is an inherent blood thinner that will delay clot formation, leading to significant delays in the healing process.
Conclusion
Undergoing a tooth removal can prove to be a rather challenging experience because of how painful and stressful it can get. But much of the difficulties will kick in during the post-procedure stage. By taking the time to watch out for the dos and don’ts mentioned above, you can ensure that everything goes smoothly after your procedure!
We’re a team of family dentists in Chattanooga with more than 75 years of collective experience in handling white teeth covers, dentures, tooth extractions, and dental plans. Get in touch with us today to see how we can help!