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I got my wisdom teeth out this week, and boy am I swollen. It looks like Istuffed a giant grapefruit in my mouth, whole.
Any suggestions as to making my face less bloated? Keeping my temperature down? Sleeping through the night without pain?
Please help!
Putting ice packs on your cheeks really helps. I got all four out at once. I didn’t have so much pain or problems but ice packs do help. The doctor gave me something for the pain but I think regular painkillers would work. Refuah Shilaima.
frum, you should’ve notified us earlier! The earlier you put the ice on your cheeks (after getting the teeth removed) the better you’re off. My oral surgeon also gave me a couple of prescriptions for pain relievers. They helped but they knocked me out as well. Feel better!
frum not crum – refuah shelaima. The ice is very important, and keep doing it until the swelling goes down, 15 minutes on 15 minutes off. If you can manage with OTC painkillers, good, but don’t be a martyr either if you need a stronger med. It’s the bottom teeth that cause the real problem, because they are in the jawbone. the uppers are more soft tissue, so the bottom ones tend to hurt more post-surgically. Follow doc’s orders. I am surprised he diodn’t give you antibiotics to begin with. Feel bettah!!!!
Wisdom teeth removal is definitely one of the most painful minor procedures out there. I totally feel for you! If most of the swelling is from the lymph nodes, you can’t do anything about it- the swelling will go away when the infection does. As for your jaw, ice it, but not constantly- you need to switch off every 20 minutes or so. In terms of OTC painkillers, I say go for Aleve- it’s the strongest one. If you need a prescription, Vicodin is the way to go- but not too much, it’s a very powerful drug.
Disclaimer: The following is for educational purposes only. It is not meant as medical advise. Ask your doctor for any practical advise regarding treatment of any medical or dental condition.
Dentists will usually offer a prescription of Vicodin or something if you want it, but it isn’t really necessary to take something like that. Take a double dose of Ibuprofin (Advil). It will help the pain, swelling, and temperature with no side effects (for normal people not on certain medications and without certain health problems). It will make everything tolerable. You may need to be on antibiotics, as well – ask your dentist. Be careful to avoid sucking or anything that causes suction in your mouth. That could cause the clots on your lower jaw to pop out, thereby exposing your bone to infection (dry socket). If you were to end up with dry socket, the pain would get much worse.
Just one note of Chizuk, I had 4 teeth pulled at one shot. The pain doesnt last more than a few days. And the swelling should go down in a week. I was totally swollen that when I went to work, one co worker stared at me and said “I thought you were Phyllis’s sister!”
frum: Did you go to a oral surgeon or did your dentist do it?
frum, wow. You seemed to have gone thru some experience there! I also had my four teeth (all impacted) taken out at once and the dentist made it sound like a huge deal. It turned out fine, though, like Phyllis said. If you have any issues, you should definitely be speaking to your dentist about it. He should know the most…
Feel better!
If you are going to do it, and they are ALL impacted – do it all at once. It’s going to hurt no matter what you do, so you might as well get it over in one shot. My daughter had three pulled together, and the doc talked us out of doing the fourth at the same time, and now we are really sorry about it. Pain is pain, and each person deals with it differently. One daughter had a bottom AND top tooth pulled, and she was totally fine within a day or so, and only needed Extra strength tylenol for the pain. The other one was on Vicodin for one tooth, and it didn’t help. each person is different. But if there will be pain already, why prolong the experience?
fnc- I am not a Dentist, I read Enlarged Lymph Nodes could be the connected to Oral Infection from the Surgery. One suggestion was to swash Salt Water (a pinch of Sea Salt in a cup of Tepid water not too hot) in the mouth, as the Salt Water may help the mouth by keeping it Sanitary. By keeping the inside of the mouth and Gums clean, it may help shrink the Enlarged Nodes. Ask your Dentist what he thinks about using Salt Water before doing this.
If your dentist prescribed cleocin (clindamycin) instead of amoxicillin, you probably had a bad infection. Cleocin is stronger, but it has worse side effects.
I also had my wisdom teeth pulled out last week. My dentist gave me Motrin 400 and Tylnol Codeine. That really helped. ALso fill up a glass with water and a tsp of salt and swish it around in your mouth. That helps for the pain too.
My oral surgeon wanted to give me Tylenol with Codein, but that’s pretty strong stuff and I decided to just stay with standard Tylenol. I was in a lot of pain for about three days before I started feeling better. Luckily, I didn’t have a ton of swelling even though I had all four out at once. Different people react differently to medication/have different pain thresholds, so your experience is probably pretty unique. My neighbor also had allergic reactions to her antibiotics; she was throwing up and couldn’t even keep down water. It’s best to know and document your allergies so it doesn’t happen again.
I actually freaked out before the procedure because I had never had surgery before and had a lot of anxiety about what would happen. They gave me a relaxation pill 90 minutes before and it was still a struggle to even get me into the chair! I remember scrutinizing every word of the contract I had to sign. There were all these clauses saying that the surgeon was not responsible if anything happened to me during the surgery, and the possible (but not probable) side effects were scary. At the end, it said “as with any surgery, there is a minor risk of death” so jokingly I said to my mom before they put me down, “if anything happens, i love you!” It definitely wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be, and b”h my body responded positively to the surgery without any side effects.
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