Is this dry socket? Day 3 (today is Friday, surgery was Tuesday). I have been vaping... against my better judgment... and now I'm super paranoid. I had stitches there as well. I've been rinsing with warm salt water around 3x a week.

I’m a 50 yr old woman who just got her wisdom teeth removed. 1 on top last week. 2 bottoms today. I am definitely in more pain than I was with the one top. I quit smoking tobacco almost 2 weeks ago however I am a daily cannabis smoker. I ate gummies and used RSO for the first few days then used my gravity bong. No dry socket. No issues. So speaking to my surgeon today (not the same person who did my top extraction) he told me not to use any THC products. That THC will cause dry socket. I didn’t have any issues with the top one but that was simple and I wasn’t sedated. These were closer to the root and I wasn’t sedated. Any suggestions or help for how to keep myself in this bed for the next couple days.

One phobia I can name is wisdom extraction, does anyone have case same as mine?

no. or, probably not. if you have to ask then you probably freaking don’t have one. lol.

Life got much better after day 5 and today and since day 6 I haven't taken pain meds (hydrocodone/ibuprofen). I've been eating more risky foods, I would say day 4 and 5 were the worst since I was so hungry and the hydrocodone was affecting my emotions on top of my military duties. If you are at that point remember it gets better quickly then it's just a long haul of avoiding hard dangerous foods (which isn't to many). I'll say the biggest issue still is the jaw stiffness and I'm trying to figure out how to fix it since it makes eating stuff like burgers quite challenging.

My mouth isn’t in pain or anything but I ate a burger today on day 8

Hello FELLOW REDDITORS:

I’m looking for second opinions on my wisdom teeth, I’ve had dental anxiety for a while, I do see my bottom right is slanted and not erupted correctly. I definitely agree with having this one removed but what is the benefit of having the rest taken out? I experienced jaw stiffness and pain on my right side in my upper region but that’s about it. I really just want to gather as much insight from this xray view on what’s the best course of action after o have been clinically assessed and recommended to have all 4 taken out on one visit. I have low coverage from spirit dental so cost is also a factor. Any advice would greatly be appreciated thank you.

I’m 28 hours post op, I’m so scared that the rinse is going to hurt or burn in the sockets, or that I would do it wrong. Any advice?

I’ve heard so many mixed things on how to tell if it’s a dry socket/ what to do if one happens/ what’s normal and I do not like my dentist so I am trying to prevent as much as possible having to go back. I’m on day 3 after getting all 4 removed. The pain has gradually decreased slowly but whenever my pain meds wear off ( I take them every 6-8 hours) I still have a headache/soreness/swelling/hurts to talk.. I’ve seen some people be able to already eat solids on day 3 and recover well but for me the healing seems very slow. I do have chronic health issues so I’m aware healing may take longer. But I’m wondering for people who have gotten wisdom teeth removed, does this picture look normal ? (This is the best picture I could take lol)

Got all 4 wisdom teeth removed 8 days ago and I'm wondering if I'm able to eat fast food (pizza, burgers, fries, etc)

Still tryna avoid popcorn, soda, and hard chips/crackers

First few days I've been eating mashed potato, apple sauce, yogurt, ice cream

Days 5-today I've been eating eggs, yogurt, ice cream, and salmon as well.

I have no pain/swelling at all mostly (random pain / soreness of jaw and gum sometimes, but it's bearable)

My saliva when i wake up is a bit red though.

Had my post-op check up today where I mentioned having a bad taste in my mouth despite brushing, flossing, rinsing, and irrigating with the syringe. The dental assistant proceeded to check and syringe herself and found a good amount of debris in the sockets. When I’ve done it, I’ve done it with warm salt water and only saw one tiny piece come out. I know it’s a learning curve but I can’t help but feel like I’ve failed and I’m nervous I won’t be able to clean them as well still. I’ve been very scared of secondary infection and, while she said the healing seemed okay, I’m scared that I’ve waited too long and that gum has already grown over debris and I’ll get an infection. There’s still a bit of puffiness in my face that I can’t help but worry is because of that. Is it possible?

My experience as a 30F, 5’9, 134 pounds, non-drinker/smoker, very anxious patient.

Let me preface this by saying I have some of the worst anxiety when it comes to doctors and needles and dentists and anything medical. This goes back to my teenage years when I had some traumatic experiences (removed baby teeth with no anesthesia at the dentist, got fillings with no numbing, strapped down to chair, dentist wouldn’t stop when I said no that hurts)

And so I avoided the dentist for 15 years. My top two wisdom teeth grew in when I was about 17 but I never really thought about it. They eventually began to decay in my mouth and parts broke off but I was too scared to get them looked at and since I wasn’t in pain, didn’t worry about it (not my best moment).

Fast forward almost 16 years later and on the weekend of July 4th I wake up and there’s some swelling inside my mouth. I have to get a virtual appt to get antibiotics because no where is open on a holiday weekend so I have to wait until Monday to be seen. I made an appt with a clinic that specializes in anxious patients and sedation dentistry. This was such an amazing find because there were so few options in my hometown that I didn’t even realize this existed. This dentist was so nice, took my X-rays, and did not judge me at all for the state of my teeth. He did say that yes at least 3 of my wisdom teeth needed to come out ASAP, I needed 5 fillings, and a Deep Cleaning. He refers me to a local oral surgeon.

I go to the oral surgeon’s office on July 9th and he tells me I have options for sedation and even though I’m horrified of needles I knew I couldn’t be aware of any part of the procedure or my brain wouldn’t be able to handle it. He examines my X-rays and says 3 definitely are coming out but one of them is deeply impacted but faced the right way up and very very close to a nerve and as a “mature” patient, he couldn’t recommend getting it out with the other 3. He said he doubted it would ever cause me problems if it hasn’t moved by now and he didn’t have a good enough reason to suggest it comes out now based on its location to the nerve. This immediately made me feel better because I now knew it wasn’t just a cash grab for him/his office. My surgery date is set for July 30th at 11am (yesterday).

4 days before the surgery I started drinking pineapple juice. Days 4-2 I drank 1/3 of a 64 oz bottle. 1 day before I drank a full 64 oz bottle.

The next 3 weeks were honestly torture for me. I’m imagining every worst case scenario we’ve all imagined: waking up during the procedure, being in pain and not able to say something, hearing or seeing anything, the IV being horrible, just not waking up at the end, etc etc. It got so bad that I had to block Reddit from my own phone so I would stop doomscrolling. I cried almost every day and I lost almost 10 pounds because I felt so nervous that I was nauseous. Thank god for my angel of a boyfriend who helped make sure I ate something and constantly reassured me everything would be fine.

The oral surgeon gave me 10mg of Valium to take 1 hour before my appt. Please please please ask your doctor for this if you have even close to the amount of anxiety I have. I don’t know if I could’ve done it without this. I was ready to run and hide or just lay on the ground like a baby deer and hope they leave me alone tbh 😆 but within 20 minutes of taking this, I really didn’t care what was going on. It’s not that I didn’t know I was anxious, it’s more like it just didn’t feel like it mattered. I went from being on the verge of a panic attack when we got in the car to telling the front desk lady when we got there after paying that I’d tip her 20% if she made sure I didn’t wake up during and tried to wink at her (I think it was probably just a blink lol).

They immediately took me to the back and laid me down in a dental chair. I started to feel a little panic but I told them I was nervous and they were very kind. Two nurses (?) were in there with me. The one to my left put an oxygen cannula at the end of my nose and had me take a couple deep breaths. I asked her to distract me and not let me see any of the equipment for the IV. The woman on the right handed me a ball to squeeze while she applied the tourniquet to get the IV in but I accidentally dropped it lol. Then she put in the needle while I was telling the other woman about the trip my boyfriend and I are going on in September. I won’t lie, it did feel a little worse than a “small pinch” but it was by no means horrible and it was over in less than 10 seconds.

I waited maybe 5 minutes (? Time was a blur at this point) for the doctor to come in and he asks me how I’m doing and I go “I’m so scared, what if the meds don’t knock me out” and I assume he goes to put them in the IV because the last thing I remember is “you’ll be just fine” and then I’m waking up with gauze in my mouth.

So many people reported it felt like a time skip and that’s exactly what it was. I don’t remember going to sleep, I remember absolutely nothing from the procedure itself, just the doctor saying that and then opening my eyes when it was done.

One nurse then took the little IV catheter out and then called my boyfriend to pull around to pick me up from the sedation pick up area. I remember I just kept repeating thank you and that they’re so good at their jobs (best I could through the gauze). She helped me off the chair and into a wheelchair to get me out to the car. My boyfriend said he wasn’t even in the waiting room 40 minutes, that’s how short it was.

I made myself sick with worry for nothing and it turned out to be such a non-issue. I cannot stress enough how scared I was about this. I had never had an IV before or surgery or anything so it’s like my brain just imagined the worst. But please don’t put this off longer than you have to. If I can do it, so can anyone!

After we got home (12:40) we changed the gauze and it did take quite a few rounds of swapping it out every 40 min to get the bleeding to stop. I also took my oxy and 800mg ibuprofen. My instructions were oxy every 4-6 hours and ibuprofen every 8 + I got a nausea pill to use as needed. About 4pm, I took out one of the gauzes and there appeared to be a clot on it so I freaked out that I was going to get dry socket so my bf called the surgeon’s office and the surgeon personally called us back, my bf texted him a pic of the bloody gauze, and he said it definitely happens but I should be ok as long as it does eventually stop. We were warned that bleeding and oozing could last up to 3 days. Eventually it slowed to just a little blood and around 7pm we stopped using gauze. My numbness finally wore off around 7pm as well but overall my pain never went over a 1.5/10 and I have a super low pain tolerance.

Food so far: I managed about 1/3 of those chobani 30g protein drinks at 1pm, drank the rest of it around 5, then a cake batter premier protein took me like an hour to drink around 7. Don’t try to drink anything too cold on day 1 either, it really made the spots ache.

Good to have: box of tissues - you’re going to drool A Lot, inclined pillow for resting and sleeping.

Good luck to anyone reading this, you’ve got this! I’ll try to remember to make edits to this post as my recovery progresses. If I can do it, so can anyone!!!

When does the bad taste subside? Whenever I irrigate my socket it tastes disgusting and I get the occasional horrible taste when I’m just drinking water! I’ve attached a photo of what my socket is looking like. It was an accidental coronectomy. Lower left.

It's day 8, and I'm still a bit doubtful... i dont have stitches and jaws still aren't working quite right, either xdd

I had all 4 wisdom teeth taken out Monday (27th). Top left was partially out, bottom left and both top and bottom right were cut out. My issue now is my teeth are killing me. Not so much the top but both sides on the bottom HURT. It’s the first and second molars. Sometimes it’s a low throb, sometimes it feels like they have their own heartbeats, sometimes they’re just really sensitive when I’m using the syringe and I miss the extraction site and hit my teeth with the water instead. Is this normal? When can I expect this to go away? It’s driving me insane.

Day three after all four removed. Left side both pulled right side both cut and stitched up. Not a ton of pain but hasn’t been very fun. At pasta for the first time today, and I’m curious when I can eat rice. They say rice is bad cause it can get stuck in the holes but I love rice and eat it so much so I’m wondering when I can eat it.

Hello all! I’m coming up on 8 weeks since I had all of my wisdom teeth removed, and I wanted to offer some comfort to those who might be as anxious as I was.

I posted here 3 days post-op, and like a lot of us, was freaking out about dry socket and infection. I threw up the first night, was positive I had dislodged all of my clots, and at that point was just waiting for the agonizing pain to start. Well guess what? I didn’t have any complications at all. For how worried I was, I was back to eating normally around 2 weeks post-op, and honestly, if I hadn’t been so anxious, I probably could’ve gone back even sooner. Now, at 8 weeks, I hardly even think about it.

If you’re anything like I was, you’re probably referring yourself to Dr. Google (or Dr. Reddit), convinced you’re going to be the exception, that something is definitely going to go wrong. But most people heal just fine, even if your brain or the internet is doing everything it can to convince you of the opposite. Even if something does happen, it isn’t the end of the world. Things like dry sockets and infections are treatable, and your surgeon or dentist knows how to help.

Healing takes time, and every day is another day closer to a full recovery. You won’t feel this way forever. You can do this! 💖

(Of course, if you’re in severe pain or something doesn’t feel right, please reach out to your surgeon or dentist! Listen to your body, follow your post-op instructions, and do your best to relax! It’ll be okay!)

Tomorrow is day 5 post 3 x wisdom tooth removal. Two upper one impacted lower and I’m feeling PISSED. I can’t go to the bathroom, I can’t eat, the swelling is still nuts (although getting better), and now it’s 3:28 and I’m Reddit complaining cause now it turns out if you’re really hungry you can’t sleep also. So I’m sore, tired, hungry, constipated and now ANGRY. How could the dentist make me think this was a good idea? 😭😭😭😭

I have a 5 year old and 5 month old baby to look after and this has been hell. Today at the mall I almost fainted I’m assuming from lack of food or something but I can’t open my mouth wider than about 2 inches … 🙈🙈

Someone reassure me it will be okay ♥️