How to Tell If Your Tooth Extraction Area Healed Properly?

What Are Tooth Extractions?

They are dental procedures that permanently remove natural teeth from the jawbone. Tooth extractions may seem like a disservice to your dental health, but they are not. Instead, dentists only perform tooth extractions when necessary to preserve general oral health. Some of the factors that may necessitate tooth extractions are:

1. Impacted teeth – feature teeth that grow improperly. These teeth remain fully or partially stuck under the gums.
2. Crowded mouth – removing one tooth makes room for the remaining ones to align properly.
3. Severe tooth decay – some dental cavities can damage a tooth structure so much that endodontic procedures to save the tooth become ineffective for treatment.
4. Periodontitis – is a severe infection of the gums and jawbone, compromising teeth’ stability. A dentist may need to extract such teeth as a treatment for periodontitis.
5. Risk of infection – typically when you suffer from underlying health conditions or are receiving intense treatments like chemotherapy for cancer.

What Do Tooth Extractions Entail?

Tooth extractions are typically invasive dental protocols since the process of detaching a tooth from its socket is painful. Simple tooth extractions typically entail rocking a tooth back and forth until it detaches. However, problematic teeth may require oral surgeries.

Proper Healing After Tooth Extraction

Tooth extractions in Calgary, AB, are among the dental procedures that dictate long healing periods. You have to be intentional about creating a conducive environment for your mouth to heal properly. Ideally, it should take about 14 days for your mouth to heal well after tooth extraction. However, a dentist near you should inform you that patients heal differently. As long as you are healing, you should not worry too much about whether it takes 7 days or more to get better. Some tips to speed up your healing process are:

1. Eat soft foods – avoid anything that might hurt your wound, aggravating pain, bleeding, and swelling. The more you heal, the more comfortable you will be with eating hard foods again.
2. Rest – take time to rest so your body can focus on healing the wound.
3. Keep your mouth clean – the last thing you want is to harbor harmful bacteria in your mouth and risk infecting the extraction wound.
4. Eat healthily – although you are eating soft foods, it does not merit choosing unhealthy meals. Healthy foods are necessary to provide nutrients for your body to heal quickly.
5. Chew away from the extraction point – avoid over-exerting the treated side of your mouth.
6. Take your medicine – your dentist in SE Calgary will prescribe medication for pain management. Medication can also alleviate swelling and minimize the risk of infection.

Will You Know When You Have Healed?

It should be apparent that you are feeling better than you did soon after your tooth extraction. By the second week post-treatment, you should notice various improvements in your mouth. Some indicators will be:

1. No pain when you chew food.
2. Decreased sensitivity to salt.
3. No swelling at the extraction site.
4. No open wound – if you had stitches, they will have dissolved.

When to Call Our Doctors

During the recovery period, keep monitoring your extraction site. Identify any anomalies you may experience, as they are worth reporting to your dentist. After tooth extraction, you should consider calling our doctors at Sedona Dental under the following condition:

1. If the wound keeps bleeding – the blood should stop after the first 48 hours. It may be normal to notice streaks of blood in your saliva during the first week of recovery. However, if you are bleeding a lot, you need urgent dental care.
2. If there is pus on your wound – often an indication of a lingering infection in your oral cavity affecting the extraction site.
3. If the wound grows bigger – the wound should get smaller as you heal, and the stitches dissolve. If the extraction site seems to be increasing in size, you need immediate dental care. The stakes are higher if you begin to develop mouth sores in the surrounding areas of the tooth extraction site.
4. If swelling spreads to other body parts – like the neck and face.