Managing Pain During and Following Tooth Extraction
Getting a tooth extracted is painful. However, your dentist will give you local anesthesia during the removal or eliminate pain. In addition, the dentist near you will recommend over-the-counter or prescription painkillers to help manage pain during your recovery.
Please continue reading to learn how to manage pain during and following tooth removal and what you can expect during the process.
Discomfort during Tooth Removal
Depending on your comfort level and the anticipated extraction complications, your dentist or oral surgeon will give you one or multiple types of anesthesia. They are:
Local Anesthesia: When giving you local anesthesia, the dentist or oral surgeon performing tooth extraction near you will apply a topical numbing gel on the gums surrounding the tooth being extracted. After that, they will administer a local anesthetic with one or more injections near the site of the affected tooth.
Although the anesthesia doesn’t remove all sensations, you will not experience any pain or sharpness. However, as the dentist works, you will feel some pressure in the mouth because you will remain awake during the removal.
Dental Sedation: dental sedation has different options. If you need minimal sedation, the dentist might provide nitrous oxide to help you relax during tooth removal. Alternatively, your dentist might also suggest oral conscious sedation by giving you a pill you can take an hour before your procedure.
During the tooth removal, you will remain awake but feel relaxed and drowsy. Sedation suppresses your consciousness leaving you with few memories of the process. However, you still receive local anesthesia in the mouth because sedation merely controls anxiety. Dental sedation is helpful for complicated extractions and depends on your dental anxiety and the severity of the procedure.
General Anesthesia: in certain situations, the dentist or oral surgeon might offer you general anesthesia administered through the nose or an IV in the arm. Occasionally the two are used simultaneously. General anesthesia induces unconsciousness in you, making you fully asleep. Your vital signs, such as breathing, blood pressure, and temperature, are monitored by the anesthesiologist during the tooth removal. You will not have any recollection of your procedure or experience any pain. You will likely receive local anesthesia to help manage post-operative pain.
Pain after the Tooth Removal Process
The Dentist in Summerland recommends over-the-counter pain relievers to help manage post-operative pain. If your tooth removal process is complicated or needs surgery on the gums and bone, you will likely receive a prescription for narcotic painkillers for pain management.
To help with pain management, the Summerland dentist provides post-operative self-care instructions like putting an ice pack on your cheeks intermittently at 15-minute intervals, resting, propping your head with a pillow when lying down, eating soft and cool foods, rinsing your mouth with salt water 24 hours after the surgical procedure and using warm compresses. The dental care instructions provided by the dentist help to recover without complications speedily to get back to your daily activities.
Expectations during Tooth Removal
If your tooth removal procedure is straightforward on a visible tooth, you require a simple extraction when the dentist loosens your tooth in the gums with elevators after administering local anesthesia and eventually use forceps to grip the tooth for removal from the gums.
However, if you need a surgical extraction, the dentist will make incisions in your gums after giving you anesthesia to access the tooth’s root. If they find any bone blocking the root, it is removed before finally removing the tooth by cutting it into sections for comfortable removal.
Whether you receive a simple or surgical extraction, the professional clean the area and might place sutures to close the wound. Finally, the placement of gauze over the area to control bleeding and help in blood clot formation completes the procedure, and you receive instructions to bite on the gauze for 20 to 30 minutes after tooth removal.
Discomfort Following Exception
Everyone heals from tooth removal at different speeds, depending on their general health. However, you can expect tenderness and pain in the area for one to three days, besides tightness and stiffness in your jaw from sitting with your mouth open during the removal. If you experience severe pain on day three of the removal, you might have a dry socket. Dry sockets occur when blood clot formation at the removal site doesn’t succeed or gets dislodged due to improper dental care. Dry sockets are treated with medicated gels placed by the dentist with sedative dressings to cover the socket.
Pain is associated with tooth extraction, but your dentist helps eliminate the discomfort with local anesthesia or sedation during the removal and recommends over-the-counter or prescription medications to help with post-operative pain. However, you must prepare for some tenderness in the tooth removal site for a few days before you recover.
If you need a tooth or teeth removed, Summerland Dental Center helps with the procedure by performing minimally invasive removals. Consult this practice for extraction and replacement if necessary to regain your mouth functionality and restore aesthetics.