While tooth extraction is a safe surgery with few complications, it is still surgery. You should take time to recover and make sure that you take care of yourself and your mouth. While you’re recovering from your tooth extraction, here are some things you should remember. 

Get Plenty of Rest

Any kind of surgery, no matter how major or minor the procedure, requires time to recover. While the mouth tends to heal quickly, you still need to take time for recovery. Rest and relax. Keep your head upright and give the extraction site time to clot so that it can heal. 

Drink Plenty of Water

After tooth extraction, water is the best thing you can drink. It lacks additives, acids, sugars, and other things that can aggravate the site and cause infection. While you may be tempted to use a straw to drink water, don’t. The suction from using a straw will aggravate the clot and interfere with healing. Drink the water gently instead. In addition to hydrating you, the water will help keep the site free of food particles and bacteria. 

Avoid Alcohol, Coffee, Tea, and Carbonated Beverages

Water is the best thing to drink after your tooth extraction. You should avoid other beverages for at least four days while you wait for the area to clot and begin healing. Carbonated beverages can aggravate the extraction site while tea and coffee both have compounds that you don’t want to get into it. As for alcohol, it can cause additional complications to healing. 

Eat Soft Foods

Eating is as important as staying hydrated. Pain will make it difficult to want to eat. Soft foods will help ease you into eating while you heal and keep you from aggravating the extraction site. Start with foods like mashed potatoes, apple sauce, scrambled eggs, and soup broth. Make sure that the foods you eat are lukewarm. It’s important to avoid hot foods during the healing process. 

Avoid Hard and Chewy Foods

While you’re choosing the foods to eat, avoid anything that is hard and chewy. Chewy foods may attach to the forming clot and loosen it. If hard, crunchy foods splinter, they could cause injury to the site. 

Let the Extraction Site Clot

Bleeding is perfectly normal after tooth extraction. Keep your gauze replaced until the bleeding stops and the clot forms. Once it has formed, make sure that you don’t disturb it with foreign objects or food or drinks that can loosen it. 

Take Care of Pain and Swelling

Pain and swelling are normal after tooth extraction. You can apply an ice pack to your cheek for 10 minutes at a time to help reduce swelling and alleviate pain. Follow your dentist’s instruction on other pain management as well. It’s important that you keep pain under control so that you can eat and drink to support healing. 

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If you need a dentist in Bucks County for tooth extraction, contact us today to make an appointment.