What To Expect

Activity

• Rest after surgery. Avoid strenuous activity and heavy lifting until your dentist or doctor says its okay.
• Elevate your head with pillows when lying down. This may help reduce swelling.
• Don't drive until your dentist or doctor says it's okay.

Diet

• Eat soft foods, such as gelatin, pudding, or a thin soup. Gradually add solid foods to your diet as you heal.
• Do not use a straw for the first few days. Sucking on a straw can loosen the blood clot that forms at the surgery site. If this happens, it can delay healing.

Medicines

• Your doctor will tell you if and when you can restart your medicines. You will also get instructions about taking any new medicines.
• If you stopped taking aspirin or some other blood thinner, your doctor will tell you when to start taking it again.
• If your doctor prescribed antibiotics, take them as directed. Do not stop taking them just because you feel better. You need to take the full course of antibiotics.
• Be safe with medicines. Read and follow all instructions on the label.
  • If you are not taking a prescription pain medicine, ask your doctor if you can take an over-the-counter medicine.
  • If the doctor gave you a prescription medicine for pain, take it as prescribed.
  • Store your prescription pain medicines where no one else can get to them. When you are done using them, dispose of them quickly and safely. Your local pharmacy or hospital may have a drop-off site.
• If you think your pain medicine is making you sick to your stomach:
  • Take your medicine after meals (unless your doctor has told you not to).
  • Ask your doctor for a different pain medicine.

Incision care

• Bite gently on the gauze pad periodically, and change pads as they become soaked with blood. Call your dentist or oral surgeon if you still have bleeding 24 hours after your surgery.
• While your mouth is numb, be careful not to bite the inside of your cheek or lip, or your tongue.
• After 24 hours, gently rinse your mouth with warm salt water several times a day to reduce swelling and relieve pain. Do not rinse hard. This can loosen the blood clot and delay healing.
• Avoid rubbing the area with your tongue or touching it with your fingers.
• Continue to brush your teeth and tongue carefully.

Ice and heat

• Try using an ice or a cold pack on your cheek for 10 to 20 minutes at a time. Try to do this every 1 to 2 hours for the first 1 to 2 days (when you are awake) or until the swelling goes down. Put a thin cloth between the ice and your skin. Then for the following few days, you can try applying heat on your cheek. Apply heat for 10 to 20 minutes at a time, several times a day.

Other instructions

• Do not smoke, vape, or use tobacco products for at least 24 hours after your surgery. They can increase your risk for complications and delay wound healing.

Why It Is Done

A wisdom tooth is extracted to correct an actual problem or to prevent problems that may come up in the future. Here are some of the problems that can occur when wisdom teeth come in:

• Your jaw may not be large enough for them, and they may become impacted and unable to break through your gums.
• Your wisdom teeth may break partway through your gums, causing a flap of gum tissue to grow over them. Food and germs can get trapped under the flap and cause your gums to become red, swollen, and painful. These are signs of infection.
• More serious problems can develop from impacted teeth, such as infection, damage to other teeth and bone, or a cyst.
• One or more of your wisdom teeth may come in at an awkward angle, with the top of the tooth facing forward, backward, or to either side.

How Well It Works

Wisdom tooth removal usually is effective in preventing:

• Crowding of the back teeth.
• A wisdom tooth becoming stuck in the jaw (impacted) and never breaking through the gums.
• Red, swollen, and painful gums caused by a flap of skin around a wisdom tooth that has only partially come in.
• Gum disease and tooth decay in the wisdom tooth, which may be harder to clean than other teeth, or in the teeth and jaw in the area of the wisdom tooth.

Risks

After a wisdom tooth is removed, you may experience:

• Pain and swelling in your gums and tooth socket where the tooth was removed.
• Bleeding that won't stop for about 24 hours.
• Difficulty with or pain from opening your jaw (trismus).
• Slow-healing gums.
• Damage to existing dental work, such as crowns or bridges, or to roots of a nearby tooth.
• A painful inflammation called dry socket, which happens if the protective blood clot is lost too soon.
• Numbness in your mouth and lips after the local anesthetic wears off, due to injury or inflammation of nerves in the jaw.
• Rare side effects, including:
  • Numbness in the mouth or lips that does not go away.
  • A fractured jaw if the tooth was firmly attached to the jaw bone.
  • An opening into the sinus cavity when a wisdom tooth is removed from the upper jaw.

Dental surgery may cause bacteria in the mouth to enter the bloodstream and cause infections in other parts of the body. People who have certain health conditions may need to take antibiotics before dental surgery. Such people include those who have had a heart valve repaired or replaced or were born with heart defects.

Anesthetic (local or general) almost always is used during the extraction procedure. All surgeries, including oral surgery, that use general anesthetic have a small risk of death or other complications.