Call your dentist or surgeon if you experience difficulty swallowing or breathing, excessive bleeding, fever, severe pain, a worsening of swelling, numbness, or oozing from tooth sockets at any time during your recovery.
Plan on resting for the remainder of the day of your surgery. You may find it more comfortable to sleep on your back with your head elevated rather than putting pressure on your face by sleeping on your side.
It’s okay to brush your teeth on the night of your surgery, but rinse very gently and avoid brushing the incisions.
Starting the day after, you’ll begin doing a warm salt water rinse six times a day (especially after eating). Your doctor should provide a syringe to gently irrigate the surgical sites. A study on drinking tap water post-wisdom teeth removal (Clinical Oral Investigations; February 2016) says it’s the most effective way to reduce inflammatory complications (so make your salt water rinse with tap water).
The most common complication with wisdom teeth extraction is dry socket, which develops when the blood clot within the excision site is dislodged or dissolves, exposing bone and nerve endings. Symptoms include severe pain, visible bone, bad breath, swollen lymph nodes, and fever. Following your oral surgeon’s dental care instructions will preserve good oral health, keeping the area clean, the blood clot intact, and infection at bay.
For at least 72 hours after your surgery, avoid:
- smoking cigarettes or marijuana (it can impede healing, and the suction can lead to dry socket)
- using a straw (which can also cause dry socket)
- vigorous activity and exercise
- blowing your nose (just dab it with a tissue)
Typically, bruising takes up to 10 days to fade. It takes up to three weeks for swelling and pain to completely subside, and four to six weeks before your sockets entirely heal after wisdom teeth removal.
If your stitches are dissolvable, they should be gone in a few weeks; if not, you may need an appointment with your dentist to remove them.
