Dry Socket After Tooth Extraction Symptoms, Main Causes and Prevention

Dry socket after a tooth extraction is a possible outcome that appears in case you had a dental cure.

When you go to the doctor with sore teeth, sometimes you may be advised to remove the tooth. There are a few reasons for this procedure. It’s frequently recommended in a case of wisdom teeth, but also treats and eliminates oral infections and overly dense teeth. As usual, dental extraction is a sufficiently ordinary operation, but still, patients have to know about some outcomes during treatment, including dry socket.

On frequent occasions, people don’t take primary dry socket symptoms seriously, because they consider them normal state after removal operation. Painful sensations can emerge during the first day and then will pass after a while. Though, the inflammation produces an ache in a socket that doesn’t subside, but rather becomes more intensive and stronger. What’s more, there is no blood clot inside. Ripple and soreness often arise inside an extraction zone. Other characteristic indications include high fever, teeth sensitivity, increased salivation, an increase in the submandibular lymph nodes, a purulent breath.

So What Is a Dry Socket and How to Recognize It?

This sick state frequently arises in case the dental extraction rules and doctor's recommendations were not followed, or there was an incomplete dental extraction. After the operation is done, the socket should be covered with a blood coagulum – it will preserve the bone and sensory endings. A dry socket is formed if there is no protection or it’s not completely formed. In that case, the removal place will be uncovered and susceptible to infection.

At times people are curious to know what dry socket looks like. At home, it’s often difficult to conduct a full inspection. Only a specialist can qualitatively examine and, if necessary, take an x-ray observation. But some signs of dry socket are striking and become the reason for visiting a doctor. Inside of a removal place will be redness of the gums, blood’s lack, and edema of a mucous membrane, gray or yellow plaque.

Dry socket pain emerges if the protecting coat is formed and the nerves become exposed reacting on any irritant.

Conditions can be enormously painful and lead to frequent visits to the dental office. To know how to prevent dry socket, such measures must be followed.

• First of all, choose a qualified specialist and rely on his opinion. You must get all the important information about the oncoming procedure.
• If you are taking any medications, make sure of finding out how they cooperate with the recovery process, in particular its impact on blood coagulability.
• As for dry socket in wisdom teeth, give attention to oral care. In this area a process of swallowing and muscle tension is high, and it’s exacerbated by the occurrence of alveolitis.
• Be careful with cleaning your mouth. Don’t use kinds of toothpaste and rinses at once after an operation. The next day, brush teeth without hurting the sore area.
• Doctors usually advise having more rest because the mouth may swell and hurt. Try to talk less for let a crust forms and the inflammation does away.
• During healing, exclude all drinks but water.
• Keep in mind that smoking after tooth extraction badly affects and detain the recovery process.

The dentist also advises some ways of home care for the oral cavity after tooth removal. Don’t neglect them, since the quick convalescence of the sore depends on this. Aside from that, an alimentation during the first several days after the operation is important:

• A meal should be warm, not hot, or cold, as this will irritate the gum tissue.
• Don’t eat hard food to avoid mechanical injuries.
• Chew food on the opposite side.

Regular methods aimed at solving the problem of how to avoid dry socket and not hurting the place of a dental extraction at one time.

If you are going to start the right treatment way, first of all, have a medical inspection and consultation.

The diagnosis starts with the first symptoms. If an ache after tooth extraction appears, it requires seeking medical attention immediately. A doctor chooses the following treatment ways after the survey. If it’s necessary to exclude outcomes, an x-ray is offered. Then the socket will be cleaned out of food particles. It may eliminate pain and avoid dry socket infection. Then the wound is disinfected with antiseptics, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory dressings are applied. If the case is severe, the dentist prescribes antibiotics or other needed medications.

Rinsing is one more way of dealing with a dry socket. However, this type of prevention isn’t for intensive use. It can be a reason for the blood clot elution, exposing the nerves, and then the tissues become inflamed and difficult to heal. Better repeat this procedure after meals two or three times during the day. The rinse will be required if the following factors are in the oral cavity:

• other teeth are injured by caries or have tartar on them;
• there were some incisions on the gums to open the flux;
• inflammation was determined already under the removed tooth

Besides different ways of how to treat dry socket, don’t forget about the common prescriptions. You have to rest more – don’t ignore full sleep after tiring procedure. However, there are some conditions about sleeping: don’t put the pillow too high to avoid excessive pressure in the jaw and, as a consequence, possible bleeding. Otherwise, the patient should maintain a calm schedule without physical activity, pressure surges, and overheating. You can’t take a hot bath (a warm shower is more appropriate) and stay under the sun for a long time. All this can provoke high blood pressure that will work badly on healing.

So What Usually Causes a Dry Socket?

Sometimes complications emerge because a person is irresponsible in the treatment process. The doctor’s recommendations are not correctly followed. Other different factors could be the reason for a dry socket origin.

• Drinking through a straw, repeated many times mouthwash, and spitting instigates displacement and loss of a blood clot.
• Previous oral infections stop the well-formed development of blood clots after removal procedures.
• Hormone balance, a hard jawbone, or bad vascular supplies are factors that hinder blood clots.
• Some harmful parts influence vascular supply growth in the mouth. As a consequence of it, a blood clot doesn’t protect an empty socket.

Usually, during the rehabilitation period, an ache lower after a while. But in the case with dry socket syndrome - it transforms into harsh pain in the temporal fossa and the ear. And instead of improving, the pain becomes more severe. As a consequence, the infection may progress up to inflammation of the jaw or more severe condition without timeous treatment.

Tooth extraction is a quite common operation without complications. However, it’s necessary to keep in mind that any intervention in the human organism requires strict adherence to all prescriptions. A dry socket may appear as one of the possible variations of complications during the treatment. If you don’t want to get this outcome, once the first painful signs come up, you have to find the time for a dentist’s visit for the correct treatment way.