How To Take Care of Your Mouth After Oral Surgery

Congratulations. We just finished your oral surgery procedure. You're ready to go home. But I want to go over a few things just to make sure you're going to be healing well for the next five to seven days while you're at home and until I see you next time. So it is very important that I do see you seven to ten days after your procedure to ensure that all the stitches are out and you're going to be healing fabulously. You're going to be numb probably for the next two to five hours. So make sure during this time you're not going to eat anything because you can accidentally bite your lip or your tongue and that could be very painful. Second of all, make sure you take the medications that I prescribed as I prescribe them, so especially the antibiotic. The antibiotic is going to ensure that you will not be getting an infection during the healing time. If you've had dental implants or replace the bone graft, there's always a higher risk of infection. So the antibiotic will make sure that no bacteria will get the best of you during this healing time. Generally speaking, if you just had oral surgery procedure, then what? You're going to be feeling a little bit more tired. Because healing takes about 20% more energy. You can resume your normal activities the day following your procedure. Just make sure you don't do any exercising for two days after your surgery. Something that'll make you out of breath where actually can cause bleeding. Make sure you do not brush the area that we just performed surgery on. Stay a tooth in front or in back of that site. The reason is there are going to be some stitches there, and I don't want you to injure the site with a toothbrush or pull on the stitches. In the meantime, though, please rinse with a prescribed mouthwash that was given to you at the office or that you picked up at the pharmacy. It is normal to have some bleeding the day of the procedure that may even continue the next morning. For that reason, we actually gave you some gauze to take home that is in a packet. So what I want you to do is actually just take a couple of squares, fold them and localize the bleeding and gently bite down in that area and hold the pressure for a good 30 minutes. This is very important. Hold that pressure for a good 30 minutes for the bleeding to stop. If you keep looking at it every five minutes, the bleeding will not stop. If the bleeding doesn't stop after an hour, go ahead and give me a call right away. A little bit of swelling is not necessarily bad. It just means your body is trying to bring the cells in there to help heal the site. So if you need to take some ibuprofen for comfort, go ahead and do so. But just remember, a little bit of swelling is actually good for healing. So let's talk a little bit about nutrition. What you can and cannot eat. Generally just avoid things that are really abrasive that could hurt the site that is just healing. So avoid things like popcorn, nuts or seeds or crunchy things like chips. Eat on the other side as much as you can. If you actually go to my website@drsandamoldovan.com you can find some superfood recipes for healing. And these are actually smoothies that are ph balanced to make sure that you are not injuring the mouth yet. They give you great alternative for meal replacements in case you don't feel like cooking. And I can't blame you. You just had surgery. If you experience any swelling that increases after three days or pain that increases three days following your procedure, definitely give me a call right away. The number's on my form. I'm Dr. Sanda and I wish you a speedy recovery. See you in seven days.