Make sure your refrigerator is stocked full of soft foods, check. Keep an ice pack in the freezer to put on your cheek, check. But are you prepared to keep the threat of dry socket from impacting your recovery? It’s not too late to brush up on how you can keep your mouth healthy and prevent post-operative complications from occurring! Read on for four tips to help prevent dry socket following your tooth extraction in Dallas.
What is Dry Socket?
After you have a tooth extracted, a blood clot will form in the socket where the tooth was removed from. This covers the bone and tissue underneath to help it heal properly. Whether it’s due to eating hard foods too early after treatment or drinking from a straw, the blood clot can become dislodged and create what’s called a dry socket. This makes the underlying bone in the socket vulnerable to the threat of infection and bacteria as well as causes discomfort and slows your recovery process.
4 Tips to Help Prevent Dry Socket
- Eat a Soft Diet: Your dentist will tell you this at your consultation, but you’ll need to have plenty of soft foods on-hand after your tooth extraction. By maintaining a soft diet until your socket has healed, you can help protect the blood clot in your tooth’s socket.
- Stop Smoking & Tobacco Use: Using tobacco products, including vapes, will limit blood flow to your extraction site to slow healing as well as expose the site to bacteria, which can lead to dry socket.
- Keep Your Mouth Clean: It’s important to keep your mouth clean as you heal to prevent unchecked bacteria accumulation. You can do this by gently brushing your teeth and tongue, being careful around your extraction site. Also, rinse your mouth with saltwater or alcohol-free mouthwash throughout the day. Just be sure not to spit it out; instead, let the liquid fall from your mouth into the sink.
- Don’t Drink from a Straw: Be sure you don’t use a straw, as the suction created can disrupt the blood clot in your extracted tooth’s socket.
When in Doubt, Call Your Dentist
If you experience any signs of dry socket, such as pain at the extraction site, never hesitate to give your dentist a call. If a dry socket is the cause, they will either provide you with medication to take or place a medicated dressing over the area to help it heal and numb the pain.
Although the threat of dry socket may feel daunting, it’s actually fairly easy to prevent! Just be sure to follow your dentist’s post-operative care instructions and these four tips to prevent the blood clot from being disrupted.
About the Author
Dr. Arrechea has over 20 years of experience practicing dentistry and has helped hundreds of patients address dental pain by providing same-day emergency dentistry. Whether that pain is due to a dry socket or a cracked tooth that needs to be extracted, she offers a variety of treatments in-house. For questions or to schedule a consultation, visit Daily Smiles Dental Dallas’s website or call 214-624-6221.