Dry socket has nothing to do with electricity
As you know, I had a tooth removed last week. Well by three days after the procedure, the main in my mouth had gone from 0 back up to 100. I thought I was going to have to pull out all my teeth! Actually I had to hide the pliers to keep from becoming a DIY [tag]dentist[/tag]. But thanks to lots of painkillers, I could make it tolerable…again. So Monday I bring my cranky and sore mouth back to the dentist. Yeah, I have [tag]dry socket[/tag]. Because I do not do well being uninformed, this announcement was more of a confirmation than a revelation. Since I decided that pulling out all my teeth probably wasn’t the best plan, I spent the weekend researching and diagnosing my pain. So I did become a DIY dentist, or at least diagnostician.
If you don’t know what dry socket is, it is when you have had a tooth extracted and the blood clot either doesn’t set properly. This can happen from the blood not [tag]clotting[/tag] properly or fully; the clot can be pulled away through too vigorous swishing, smoking, straw sucking, candy sucking…ok, sucking. In my research I did find some interesting academic discussion of dry socket. Apparently if you are on the birth control pill you have a much higher chance of getting dry socket. I also found some discussion on whether or not sucking actually will remove a clot. It seems that there are two lines of thought on this one. Some say yes, others say no. But there does not seem to be any clear cut evidence that you can suck our your own clot. Regardless though, sucking is a good thing to avoid after an [tag]extraction[/tag].
To treat dry socket, the dentist packs your mouth with gauze strips soaked in clove oil. The oil acts as an analgesic as well as an antiseptic. After poking and prodding and digging out the socket (which was less than pleasant) and flooding the area with Lidocaine, after the area stopped feeling weird, I was flooded with sweet relief! Ah, for the first night in 10 days, I was not in pain. I actually didn’t want to go to bed because I was so excited to not hurt!
Since, I have had it repacked once and the packing has come out. The socket is a bit painful again, but nothing some pain killers can’t manage. I just have to accept that healing can hurt, but at least it is healing…and I still have the rest of my teeth.
Body Image |Leave a Reply
