Ok so Oral Surgeons these days are for the most part pretty awesome. You do your research and you can end up having all four wisdom teeth removed at the same time with minimal swelling and pain. The Medical Team will do their best to educate you on After Care but, try as they might, they will miss stuff. Now I am speaking from personal experience here ~~ I am by no means a doctor or trained in anyway. I am just like most people who have had their wisdom teeth out who had questions and spent much of my recovery time at forums online trying to figure out what was going on with my body. I am writing from the personal experience of having my wisdom teeth removed 3 weeks ago and what I have been through the past few weeks.
So in essence, here are 5 things you probably didn't know about having your wisdom teeth taken out:
1) There is no universal answer as to when you will "feel better."
No matter how hard I tried answering this question. What I found is that some patients report being back to normal after day 3 (which was sadly, not me) while others have pain for 3 weeks or more. I'd say I was feeling better after 1 week and back to almost normal by 2 weeks. Even after that, I could still feel sore at times, but was eatig normally.
2) You could have gaping holes in the back of your mouth that may take at least 2-3 weeks to close up
(Again subjective...some people will heal faster and some slower) -- The point being, I never realized these holes would even exist, which I know is silly on my part. But after I figured out they were there I didn't realize they would take so long to close up. Also, these holes are magnets for food debris, which leads to "3"
3) You will be likely using the "salt water rinse" alot longer than you expected.
In order to avoid infection at the extraction site it is essential to keep food debris out of those holes I mentioned before. I am three weeks out, and am still doing this (and food debris still comes out!) If you are like me you would much rather do some rinsing each day rather than end up with an infection and more pain!
4) Those white things at the extraction site could be the blood clots you need to heal (as long as it's not food debris or infection; usually you can tell the difference if it has an odor or is pussy or inflamed, that could be an infection. When in doubt call your Oral Surgeon ASAP, goodness knows I bugged mine)
I flipped out when I first saw these and thought - oh no I have a dry socket or infection, but after a frantic call to the Oral Surgeon I was assured that this was normal, and that the clotting tissue appears white in the mouth - who knew?
5) And lastly - if you have a tinny (like blood) or medicine like taste in your mouth around Day 3-5 it could be a Medicated dissolving foam that was put in the extraction site to prevent dry socket. I was not made aware of this stuff being in mouth until my follow-up appointment and feared I had acquired the dreaded dry socket. When in doubt call your Oral Surgeon and asked if they used this stuff, and what to expect from it.
I hope this was helpful to anyone out there who is having their wisdom teeth out! Best of Luck to you and I hope everything works out smoothly!
