What to Expect With Teeth Extractions and Oral Surgery

As a dental assistant there are many questions asked concerning extractions and oral surgery. Lets talk about simple extractions first.

Simple extractions are pretty straight forward and require numbing and then all that remains is pulling the tooth. Healing usually takes about 3 weeks with this type of extraction. You can expect some bleeding throughout the day after the tooth is pulled so the dentist will give you a pouch of gauze to take home( a damp teabag will also stop the bleeding– just put the teabag in the extraction site and bite down. The acid in the teabag stops the bleeding). You should also rinse with warm salt water following the next day and then continue doing this for ten days to aid in the healing. Pain medication is not usually prescribed for simple extractions.

Precautions to take with a simple extraction:
No smoking for the next 48 hours
No drinking through a straw
Don’t forcefully rinse out your mouth ( the blood clot needs to stay down in the socket)
No hot liquids or solids
No exercises that increase the heart rate
Do not try to clean the extraction site the first day

Oral surgery is more involved and usually costs twice as much as a simple extraction because it involves twice as much work. Usually, a dentist will refer his patients to an oral surgeon to remove the tooth because he has much more experience removing difficult teeth (making the procedure much faster) and if needed he can put the patient to sleep during the extraction. The procedure starts with the dentist numbing the extraction site and then he uses a drill to cut the tooth in sections in order to remove the tooth without it breaking off at the roots. You can expect some bad smells at this point because as the tooth is cut with the drill it emits a bad odor. After he sections the tooth, he then pulls each piece out with a root attached to each( if the tooth has 3 roots, he will section the tooth into three sections). If the tooth still breaks off at the root after it is sectioned, he has to use the drill again to separate the bone away from the tooth root in order to grasp the root with the forceps. The tooth root is removed and you can expect stitches at this point because the gum tissue surrounding the tooth usually gets cut in order to access the root.

Healing usually takes about six weeks for oral surgery. You may have to return to the dentist after a week and a half to have the sutures removed if dis solvable stitches were not placed. The oral surgeon usually prescribes pain medication because of the extensive procedure. The precautions with oral surgery are the same as with the simple extractions and you will also be given a pouch of gauze to apply to the extraction site.

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