Dry Socket Prevention After Getting Wisdom Teeth Pulled

Let’s face it, having a tooth extraction of any sort is never fun & that includes wisdom tooth removal. That is why dentists place a lot of emphasis on caring for & maintaining our teeth… so that we do not reach the stage where tooth extraction is required.

Wisdom Teeth Extraction is Recommended

However, our wisdom teeth are a bit of a different breed. With wisdom teeth, most dentists will recommend that you have them removed before they have a chance at causing issues in the future. They can become infected, cause teeth to become horribly misaligned (requiring procedures to fix), among other problems that you would not want to occur.

If you’ve ever had your wisdom teeth pulled, you may remember the strong emphasis your dentist placed on post-op instructions often times involving a clear, plastic syringe that you fill with water to remove food particles & debris from the extraction site. The reason for this emphasis on post-op are to avoid a dry socket from occurring, which can very painful and a major setback.

Elaborating on What Dry Socket Is

When we have a tooth removed, a hole forms at the extraction site. This hole houses the raw bone and nerves that once supported the tooth (that is not extracted). What normally occurs is a blood clot forms over this hole in an effort to shield the site from infection, as well as encourage the healing process.

When you have a dry socket, you have a socket with no blood clot, hence the word “dry”. Instead what you have is raw bone and nerves and it’s a type of pain you do not want to ever experience.

Symptoms of dry socket often include:

•       Headache
•       Pain radiating from the ear
•       Sensitivity to cold air or liquids
•       Excruciating pain where pain meds do not provide relief

Symptoms may last up to a week or longer.

Proactive Ways of Preventing a Dry Socket

The key to avoid a dry socket is to be careful & thoughtful. Obviously the first step is to follow your dentist’s directions. However, there are certain actions that absolutely should be avoided after your wisdom teeth are pulled. The idea here to limit anything that may interfere with that precious blood clot sitting in the extraction site:

•       Smoking
•       Picking at the site or tampering with it in any way
•       Spitting aggressively
•       Sucking through a straw

A very small percentage of people are prone to dry socket (and most cases could have been easily prevented), but if you find you ever develop a dry socket, the best thing you can do is to notify your dentist as soon as possible in order to schedule you in at your earliest convenience.