Wisdom Teeth Removal Recovery

This article is aimed at giving you thorough information regarding wisdom teeth removal recovery and the care that is needed to recover rapidly.

Wisdom teeth have ironically nothing to do with wisdom! A person having wisdom teeth may not be wise and a wise guy may not have any wisdom teeth. The 'wisdom' tag may have been attached due to the fact that these teeth usually erupt in late teenage years or in early 20s which is supposedly the period of the dawn of wisdom! That dawn may never occur of course, but we are stuck with the name, unfortunately!

In medical terms, wisdom teeth are called third molars. Molars are the grinding teeth which do the bulk of chewing. The wisdom teeth or third molars do rarely erupt just rightly to assist chewing. However, more often than not, wisdom teeth cause trouble when they erupt. They either get misaligned after eruption or just half grow out causing pain in the gums and disturbing alignment of other supporting molars. The later phenomenon is described as impacted wisdom teeth, which collide with and push other teeth causing intense pain. Make dental care, an essential part of your dental health, to take care of such problems.

Wisdom Teeth Removal

As mentioned before, since wisdom teeth often cause problems, it is wise to get them extracted. It is the recommended advice of almost all dentists, in case they do not erupt properly. The wisdom tooth is often very deeply rooted and huge in size. In addition to this, its wayward eruption makes wisdom tooth extraction a complicated job, compared to removal of other teeth.

It is more complicated in the sense, that it will cause more pain after removal, as it is deeply rooted. The extraction method is simple. The gums and muscles of half the jaw, including the tongue are made numb using anesthesia which is administered intravenously. The purpose of this is to insulate you from pain during extraction. Then enough time is given for the anesthesia to spread sufficiently and once the injected area is numb enough, the wisdom tooth is simply pulled or rather ripped out! There is no delicate way of putting it! Dentistry is a brutal job and if it was not for anesthesia, tooth extraction would be a harrowing experience. However, you feel no pain, as there is no sensation in that area due to anesthesia. There is an entire field in dentistry called sedation dentistry that deals with sedating a patient during tooth extraction. Once the tooth is removed, a cotton swab is placed at the position of the tooth and you are asked to bite down on it and apply pressure to stop the bleeding.

Steps in Wisdom Tooth Removal Recovery

Here are steps and measures that should be taken for smooth wisdom tooth removal recovery:

• Bleeding will continue for some time after extraction. Do not remove the cotton swab and keep pressing it down on the extraction area with upper teeth, for about an hour after extraction. This will help in blood clotting and help stop bleeding.
• For 48 hours after extraction, do not eat any hot or hard foodstuff. In fact, minimum jaw movement is advised! You can have cold and soft stuff like ice cream. That is one of the luxuries you can enjoy after tooth extraction. You get to eat a lot of ice cream!
• Do not gargle vigorously or spit for 24 hours after extraction as it may hinder blood clot formation and bleeding will continue. Swallow your saliva and do not gargle at all, as the pressure may rupture any clots formed.
• The anesthesia will take about 12 hours to wear out. Once it wears out, you will start feeling pain, although lessened in intensity. Talk as less as possible, as jaw movements will be painful otherwise.
• It is a good idea that you restrict to cool fluid intakes for 2 days.
• After 48 hours, gargle your mouth with salt mixed water to ward off infections.
• Take the pain killers and antibiotic medicines as prescribed by the dentist.
• Overall, it is a good idea to make your wisdom tooth extraction appointment just before weekend, so that you get adequate time for recovery.
• After two days, you can start having regular food. Exercise the jaw by opening and closing it slowly. Initially it will be painful, but the pain will slowly subside and you will feel comfortable chewing food.

Wisdom tooth removal is a painful experience, but its better to go through it once, than deal with the pain forever. After wisdom tooth removal recovery, the relief felt is worth it. I talk from personal experience! Hope you find the information about wisdom tooth removal recovery helpful. If you follow it to the letter, you should be back to your old 'wise' self albeit without a wisdom tooth!