I'm hoping a few of you guys here have had the lovely time of having your teeth removed and the ensuing week of having ballooned cheeks and throat. I just had a question - it has been a week since my operation and the swelling has decreased dramatically and the pain is lessening - feels like a good old fashioned shirt front to the jaw now - just 2/10 pain wise. Everything feels like it is healing fine except I have this very bad taste oozing from one of my sites where a tooth was taken out (had all 4 in one go). Bit of scoping the net says it may simply be some food stuff stuck or dead blood cells giving off the smell so nothing to worry about and it should pass with simple rinsing and patience.

So is this something I should call the dentist about or not worry? I guess I have been looking too much into it with the fear of developing dry sockets which I don't know if I have or not. Heck I missed this easter swell for this surgery!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated - cheers!

'the pain is lessening - feels like a good old fashioned shirt front to the jaw now'... Whatever that means.

But, hey - GPA's advice is correct, 1/3rd tspn salt in warm water a few times per day.

Buy some whole dried cloves from the herb section of woolies. suck on one, sit it right in the affected cavity. Natural pain killer / healer. did the trick for me.

take some more of those drugs they give ya you wont care anymore

Cheers guys, yeah it's all following how you guys are all explaining so stoked there are no complications. Guess I'll just have to put up with the foul taste for a bit longer. Any chance I can go for a paddle do you guys think? It's been 6 days or so now. My only worry is if something nasty in the ocean gets in

hargs said..

If you were developing a dry socket the pain would be increasing & you would know about it, they are no fun.
Did you have your wisdom teeth removed by a dentist or an oral surgeon? Were they removed under local or general anaesthetic? Did they use sutures to close the extraction sites & if so do these need to be removed?
The warm salt water rinsing advise is correct. However, if in any doubt as to how things are healing I'd get them checked ASAP.
Oh yeah - I am a Dentist.

HI HARGS, just so I know for my daughter, I take it it's better to go with an oral surgeon rather than a dentist for extractions?

Hey myusernam,

Really depends on the degree of difficulty, as some wisdom teeth are exceptionally easy to remove & some are very, very difficult.

If there is any question over the difficulty of removing any of your daughters wisdom teeth then I'd advise having them removed by a specialist oral surgeon.

At the end of the day they do the really difficult cases day in day out. There are always potential risks associated with any surgery, but it would make sense that the risk of potential post operative complications should be less when a procedure is performed by a specialist. Feel free to P.M me if you have any queries. Hargs

Had all mine out in the chair years ago and wife messed up my pain killers and doubled everything. One of the coolest weeks of my life

jbshack said..

Had all mine out in the chair years ago and wife messed up my pain killers and doubled everything. One of the coolest weeks of my life

yeah, had mine done in the adf and they sent me home and forgot to give me anything. (one was sideways and difficult) went back the next day and they were pretty apologetic and gave me some strong stuff. thanks hargs.

Sailhack said..

Had all 4 wisdom teeth out in one hit from a surgeon - went home feeling blissfully good from the drugs and with a craving for scrambled eggs. One mouthful and it was like I went from 2 drinks into a bender, straight to 7am - 'Hangover' movie-style within seconds! I bounced off all the walls & only just made it to porcelain steering-wheel in time. Ended up with a massive headache/hangover type thingy...fun times.

haha I did the same but I had driven 1000km before having to quickly pull over before vomiting out the car door. Only 200km left and I had to have a bit of a nap before making it home.
I know probably not one of my smartest decisions to drive home after the op

jbshack said..
Had all mine out in the chair years ago and wife messed up my pain killers and doubled everything. One of the coolest weeks of my life

Does she know u have life insurance? may not have been accidentally "messed up"

one of mine got removed 2 weeks ago on a friday afternoon ;-(. They spent 15 min with the pliers then a few min with the crow bar thing and pliers , it still didn't dislodge. They then drilled the tooth in half cut the gums and pulled it out in 2 bits. !
I didn't ask for any anti infection medicine so it got infected.

They shoved a disolvable bleeding thing in it. For days the taste is terrible

Make sure you gargle Listerine or salt water to clean it on a regular basis

strongly recommend going back to the dentist for a check-up to make sure its not infected etc.

newguy said..

Loving the stories on here Funny how we all have a good story about getting these bloody teeth out! I never said I didn't take Hargs advice for which I am grateful of. Cheers Hargs! Once I read it I called the dentist up and have the check up penned at the end of the day. Hopefully I can get advice on how to eat food again as I am over porridge, mashed foods and the likes - heres to the day I can sink my teeth into some fish and chips!

Don't wus out. Eat something good. As long as you cut it up into small pieces or 'chew' it with your front teeth, you are fine.

I didn't last more than the trip home from the hospital before I wanted real food. After what felt like 2 days of not eating in the hospital, I needed food!
Not soup, real food!

"Wow you have tough bones" as the dentist ground away at it with a power tool from bunnings, hmmm the last guy said the same thing!
Well I'm still shutting myself so his words did't calm me down much, lucky I took five Valium beforehand. Its when a dental surgeon looked at my X-rays and said gee iv never seen someone roots penetrate their sinus so far before in my whole career 'he wasn't young' ....that gave me some worry!
So bones of steel and teeth so tough that have to be cut out, I'm cleaning regularly and hoping I die with the rest in place.
Oh your tooth problem....keep it clean.