Before Surgery:

eat well, as you won’t be eating well for about the next two weeks (depending on your situation).

I regret didn’t take time to eat my favorite food, I missed it so much during two weeks decent eating. Prepare soft food that are easy to take (as you will be weak and have no interest to prepare something complicated, and in the first day it is good to avoid chewing especially for people with small jaws like me) e.g. baby food, instant mash potatoes, porridge, oatmeals, joghurt, scrambled eggs, pudding, fruit juices.

Prepare to do easy “things-to-do”. This is especially for people who get bored easily like me. (In my list were among others: films to watch, reading, writing/typing for my blogs, playing game)

If you have 3-4 wisdom teeth to remove, decide whether you make all at once or in two steps (left side and right side). I personally would opt for “4 at once” since I don’t want to go through this once again. (But of course I don’t know how it feels to have teeth extracted only at one side. Perhaps it is better. My husband got only two teeth on left side pulled, and he seems to recover much faster than I do, he can already chew on the right side on day two!)

Notice your home-rest days: notice your employer, friends, empty your calendar appointment

On Surgery Day:

Eat very very well before the surgery. Have a good breakfast. Due to nervousity, I ate nearly no breakfast on that day which I realized later after I came home, felt the pain, and lost any appetite but stomach was getting hungry.

Be cautious of not eating too much since you don’t want to spill it out in the operation room, do you?

Brush your teeth. The next after surgery will be less fun!

Take your prescribed antibiotics to prevent infection during surgery.

Dress comfortly.

Take someone with you, to comfort you and to drive you home.

After Surgery:

Code of Behaviour after Oral Surgery:

• Numbness: until the numbness is gone, do not drink hot or eat hot, do not take plaque-building milk products or soups.

• Bleeding: occurs for several hours after surgery. Apply the gauze pad at the bleeding areas, bite down firmly to press the bleeding. Change the gauze pad when necessary. You may use moisture rolled bandage or tissue-paper. Tea bag is an effective alternative. (It tastes better as well)

(in the next 24-72hours):

• Avoid alchohol, coffee, cola or black tea.

• Do not smoke. It is very important to refrain from smoking during the next 48hours to avoid complication.

• Avoid sauna.

• Talk as less as you can and eat as less as you can (therefore one should eat well before surgery).
  
• Avoid spitting, try to swallow your saliva to reduce the risk of loosening blood clots. Also avoid using straw as sucking can also loosen the blood clots. If strong bleeding still occurs after all effort, contact your doctor/surgeon.
• Swelling: occurs for up to 3-4 days. Use moist-cold padded icepack. Do not lay flat, use pillow to rest.
• Medicine: continue taking antibiotics as prescribed to reduce infection risk. Painkiller is to be taken only when necessary. Eat soft food. Avoid any milk ingredients, or soup which easily cause plague. Drink slowly as swallowing is still restristed. At day two or when one can drink/swallow better, improve water intake as body needs lots of liquid as compensation of less food.
• Cleaning teeth/mouth: clean your teeth 3x a day (after meal) but avoid the extraction areas. Avoid strong rinse and commercial mouth rinses.
• Avoid strong physical move such as walking to fast, jumping, shaking/nodding head too much. For the next 2 weeks don’t overdo with your teeth, gums, and jaws.

The complete recovery takes about three months. However after about two weeks, the gum will heal enough for chewing food.

Extra Note

As the anesthesia goes away and we regained our sense, pain and swelling become obvious. Take your time at home. Our surgeon gave us one-week sick permission. Take your medicine and “enjoy” the post operative time (perhaps you can share it like what I do so that it will be not useless). Take painkiller only when necessary. I didn’t take any and I survived.

Don’t be schocked with the swelling. Swelling can occur around cheek to below eyes. I looked like a chipmunk (with food inside mouth) for several days. It is normal to have swelling for 3-5 days. It should reduce afterwards.

Avoid talking, try fasting in the first hours after surgery, sleep a lot (this costs less energy thus you will need less food).

Avoid strong rinse or strong tooth-brushing or commercial mouthwash (this could irritates the wound). Use lukewarm salt water to rinse carefully 2-3 times a day. Salt water is the simplest and cheapest yet effective disinfectant. One or two teaspoonful salt l in a glass of water is enough.

My left bottom side was problematic, and perhaps I did one time rinsed too strong, my bleeding from that side occurred again on the day2-day4, not so strong but continuously small bleeding, which made me worry and made me went to doctor again to let him check. Thank goodness that no infection or complication occurred. I used the gauze pads, and then I decided to use tea bags which turned out to be much better than the pads. Due to the thick saliva (mixed with blood) it caused mouth odor and bad taste in mouth, the tea bag neutralized it better and is “cooling” the wound better.
Sit up (instead of lying down) to stop bleeding. The tea bag also cushioned the wounded teeth gum to protect against rubbing while eating/drinking/swallowing/talking.

Avoid strong physical move such as walking to fast, jumping, shaking/nodding head too much. This means no hard sport. For the next 2 weeks don’t overdo with your teeth, gums, and jaws.

After about two weeks, the gum will heal enough for chewing food so that you can progressively eat variably back to normal. Brushing teeth will become easier too.

So I hope this article is informative for you. Please leave me a comment on the feedback column below, I would be happy. Thank you.