Dry socket after tooth extracton

baby_frogmella

Hi
As part of my ortho treatment, i had both of my upper first premolars extracted last Tuesday. Until yesterday only suffered minor discomfort, however pain started to worsen though it wasn't severe. After visiting my dentist this morning, she said the blood clots in both sockets had gone and i was starting to develop dry sockets :eek: She applied dressing in both sockets along with this foul tasting brown/black chemical and told me not to rinse my mouth at all for 24 hrs. The pain has amost gone now though there is still minor discomfort. So does this mean that i'm very unlikely to go through the excruciating pain which many people suffer from when they have dry sockets? Just in case the pain worsens should i go to my local A&E for a new dressing? I presume having a dry socket also means the healing time could be anything up to 3 months? Should i avoid hard/crispy foods until it completely heals? (hope i don't have to live off soup & mashed potato for a few months!) I'm at my parents at the moment, 400 miles away from my dentist so can't visit her again until next Friday.

Cheers

Toothsmith

Most dry sockets aren't that bad.

A bit like having a bad ulcer in your mouth, but the discomfort can go on for a week or two sometimes.

The dressing should keep down the worst of the discomfort.

I wouldn't bother A&E if the dressing comes out. If it's like the vast majority of A&Es, you'll be sitting around for ages only to be told to take paracetamol and go home. They rarely have anybody dentally qualified on call and I doubt they'd have any alvogel in the building (The foul dressing)

Whatever happend, it will settle down all by itself in the end, and the VERY painful ones are a tiny minority of them.

trumpton

I think the worry is more that dry sockets are prone to infection. My friend sneezed out her blood clot, got an infection, then had to have a dressing like yours in it and a course of anti-biotics.

I think you will find it heals over quite quickly though. If it gets painful or the dressing comes out you could always try a local emergency dentist. I have had a couple of teeth removed and the socket usually heals after a couple of weeks. I was advised not to brush or drink too much to avoid dislodging the blood clot. This site gives advice -

http://www.dentalfearcentral.org/faq/healing/

brook2jack

The biggest thing is if you smoke try not to as dry socket is much more prevalent in smokers and smoking contricts the blood vessels in the socket so it doesn't have a good blood supply to help the healing.

baby_frogmella

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated. No, i don't smoke and have followed my dentists advice. I think the dressing is still there but from this morning the pain seems to have increased...but not bad enough to require pain killers. I have now started gently rinsing my mouth with warm salted water after meal times, i also have a bottle of Corsodyl lying around. Would using Corsodyl 1-2 times a day help in the healing process or would it do more harm than good?