After dental implants are placed, they are the most vulnerable within the first 72 hours. For this reason, our team recommends abstaining from alcohol for at least three days following your surgery. During these first few days, your body will need to rebuild tissue, bone cells, and blood vessels.
Reasons Why Alcohol Is Detrimental for Dental Implant
Alcohol interferes with implant integration, the natural healing procedure wherein the gum tissues regenerate, and the new bone is built to integrate with the titanium implant post. Alcohol consumption can also increase the pain after dental implants.
Your dentist will suggest avoiding alcohol for at least 7 to 10 days after your extraction to allow your tissue to heal. Instead, they will recommend drinking plenty of water. You'll stay hydrated to aid the healing process.
For the average patient, three or four days of rest will suffice after dental implant surgery. Tenderness and some swelling are normal and will subside within the first few days. Many dentists recommend having the implant surgery mid-week, allowing for a day or two off from work plus the weekend to recover.
Typically, this painless process takes about 2-3 months.
The Three Dental Implant Surgery Phases
The surgery takes places in three stages: Placement of the implant. Attaching the abutment. Fitting the crown.
In order for your mouth to heal properly, you should avoid your favorite cup of coffee at least for the first few days. As long as the extraction site heals day after day, you'll be able to carefully sip a caffeinated beverage about 5 days once your tooth has been removed.
General guidance is that you should avoid alcohol for at least 2 weeks after your surgery. In some cases, you will have either fully healed or been through the majority of the recovery process. For others, this may not be enough time.
Generally, it's best to avoid alcohol after an extraction for as long as your dentist suggests. That's usually at least 72 hours. Just to be on the safe side, though, you may want to wait seven to 10 days for the blood clot to fully form and the extraction site to finish healing. During that time, drink water instead.
As the new bone grows, there are not enough new blood vessels to supply it, leading to starvation and death. This risk is so significant that even one drink during the 72 hours after healing can trigger AVN, so it's important to avoid drinking any alcohol after your implants have been placed.
The first couple of days after the surgery, you'll want to stick to all-liquid meals if at all possible. This includes smooth soups (nothing too chunky), home-cooked broths and bouillon, meal replacement drinks, protein drinks, fruit smoothies, and various juices.
Although you may feel like you deserve a stiff drink or a nice cold beer after your procedure, indulging in a cocktail after oral surgery is not wise. Studies have shown that drinking inhibits the recovery process. Alcohol can significantly hinder the growth of new blood vessels, an integral part of healing.
Avoid alcohol: You should not drink alcohol for at least 24 hours after your bone grafting surgery. This is because ingesting alcohol not only makes it harder for your wound to heal, but it also interferes with the pain or antibiotic medication that your dentist may have prescribed for you.
This may cause significant problems with healing, may cause the tissue to become damaged, and the stitches to come undone. Avoid vigorous rinsing, spitting, smoking, carbonated soda drinks, and drinking through a straw for the first 2 weeks after surgery as this may interrupt the healing process.
Avoid alcohol for the first 24 hours after your oral surgery, as it can interfere with the healing process. And make sure that you do not drink any alcohol while you are on any pain or antibiotic medication that it may interfere with.
Alcohol use increases the incidence of postoperative bleeding. It also raises the chances of infection of the surgical site, in the respiratory system, or in the urinary tract. A poor immune response to infection can lead to sepsis and septic shock, a potentially life threatening condition.
Researchers report that although health experts may have long suspected that alcohol inhibits healing, exactly why was not so clear. It has now been proven that repeated exposure to alcohol, particularly at binge levels, reduces the levels of certain components of the immune system essential to healing.
The derangements of the inflammatory response in the presence of alcohol consumption adversely affect the process of wound healing. Many aspects of the inflammatory response are essential to proper healing of dermal wounds, potentially providing multiple therapeutic targets.
While every patient heals at a slightly different pace, most people can begin drinking small amounts of coffee around 5 days after an extraction. If all goes well, within two weeks any swelling should subside and your mouth should be mostly healed. At that point, you can return to drinking your normal amount of coffee.
When Can I Stop Worrying About Dry Socket? Until the full recovery of your extraction site, a dry socket can form if you fail to follow the care tips. Usually, a week (7-8 days) after wisdom tooth extraction, you can stop worrying about a dry socket as gums take this much time to close fully.
After your wisdom tooth extraction, you should avoid consuming hot coffee, tea, and other hot drinks for 24-48 hours. The heat from these liquids can irritate the surgery site and damage the healing process. Instead, go for a cold coffee or ice tea.
Dental Implants Require a Surgery for Placement
The risks and complications you are taking for dental implants include infection, damage to other teeth, delayed bone healing, nerve damage, prolonged bleeding, jaw fractures and more. If you are willing to take these risks, dental implants might be right for you.
For instance, a full mouth dental implant procedure — frequently referred to as full mouth crown and bridge implants — may require as many as 12 to 16 dental implants, or six to eight implants for the upper jaw and six to eight implants for the lower jaw.
Up to 40% of orthopedic trauma patients present with a positive blood alcohol content at the time of hospital admission, and alcohol consumption significantly raises the risk of healing complications, leading to nonunion and increased fracture healing times.