Not everyone develops dry socket after a tooth extraction. Dentists are not sure about what causes it, but some experts say that certain factors may increase the risk. These include: smoking.
Contact your dentist if you think you have: Symptoms of dry socket. Increased pain or pain that does not respond to pain relievers. Worse breath or taste in your mouth (could be a sign of infection)
Your dentist will clean the tooth socket, removing any debris from the hole, and then fill the socket with a medicated dressing or a special paste to promote healing. You'll probably have to come back to the dentist's office every few days for a dressing change until the socket starts to heal and your pain lessens.
Dry socket, also known as alveolar osteitis, is a condition that develops when the blood clot in an extraction site dissolves, does not form properly, or becomes dislodged shortly after the removal of a tooth. A blood clot normally protects bone and nerve tissue in the extraction site during the healing process.
Dry socket may be caused by a range of factors, such as an underlying infection in the mouth, trauma from the tooth extraction or problems with the jawbone. The condition occurs more often with wisdom teeth in the lower jaw than with other teeth. You are also more likely than others to develop dry socket if you: smoke.
Who gets dry socket? Research shows that women are slightly more likely than men to develop dry socket. This is probably due to estrogen, as the hormone may dissolve blood clots. Additionally, dry socket happens more often on the lower jaw than the upper jaw.
Risk factors
Factors that can increase your risk of developing dry socket include: Smoking and tobacco use. Chemicals in cigarettes or other forms of tobacco may prevent or slow healing and contaminate the wound site. The act of sucking on a cigarette may physically dislodge the blood clot prematurely.
Typically you can stop worrying about the dry socket after 7-10 days because this is the amount of time that gums take to close. However, everyone heals at their own time, depending on age, oral health, hygiene, and other factors.
Your dentist will treat the dry socket by: Cleaning out the socket to flush out food or other materials. Filling the socket with a medicated dressing or paste. Having you come in often to have the dressing changed.
Antibiotics given just before or just after surgery (or both) may reduce the risk of infection and dry socket after the removal of wisdom teeth by oral surgeons. However, antibiotics may cause more (generally brief and minor) unwanted effects for these patients.
Dentists will typically diagnose dry socket based on the presence of pain and breakdown of the clot after a tooth extraction. The primary treatment for dry socket is pain management, so if the condition causes little or no pain, it does not require treatment. The socket will heal and get better on its own.
When you develop dry socket, it can be extremely painful. The condition is also considered a dental emergency because it interferes with your recovery from a tooth extraction.
Dry socket causes intense pain because it exposes the nerves and bones in the gum. Dry socket, or alveolar osteitis, can last for up to 7 days. It is a common complication of wisdom tooth extraction.
A dry socket looks like an empty hole with a light color at the bottom of the extraction site. The light color is from the white-ish bone showing. A normal extraction site is a socket with a dark red blood clot formation covering the bone.
In most cases, the pain or discomfort should have subsided after 7 to 10 days. Even though people's pain threshold and healing are different, the pain and the discomfort should decrease each day. There should be little to no pain by the time you get to five days.
Stitches, which are usually placed after the removal of an impacted tooth, do not prevent dry sockets. Women taking birth control pills and smokers are more prone to dry sockets. The symptoms of a dry socket are easily treated with a medicated dressing.
By sleeping with your head elevated, you can help to minimize the risk of developing a dry socket and promote faster healing after your wisdom tooth extraction.
Lifestyle and home remedies
Take pain medications as prescribed. Avoid smoking or using tobacco products. Drink plenty of clear liquids to remain hydrated and to prevent nausea that may be associated with some pain medications. Rinse your mouth gently with warm salt water several times a day.
A dry socket will occur in only one to three percent of all tooth extraction cases, but it becomes much more common in the extraction of lower, or what we call mandibular, wisdom teeth. Those who undergo tooth extraction can experience dry socket.
One of the best things you can do is rinse your mouth with warm saltwater. This will help to remove any food particles that could be irritating your dry socket and promote blood clotting. You want to make sure that you're using warm water and not hot because hot water could further irritate your wound.
Yogurt, pudding, applesauce and Jell-O are some go-to recovery foods: no chewing involved! Stick to these post-extraction staples for the first 24 hours after your surgery before moving on to soft foods that require chewing.
Amoxicillin also reduces the chances of developing dry socket, swelling, and trismus. There's no need to worry about postsurgical infections after a long-duration surgery. Dental surgeons may prescribe Amoxicillin before and after third molar surgery, trans alveolar extraction, and impacted tooth extraction.