How To Prevent Wisdom Teeth Dry Socket

Hi. I am Brian Halvorsen and I am a dentist. I have been in practice for over 35 years and I have written a book about my principles on holistic dentistry.

The book is called Great Teeth For Life. This video is how to prevent a dry socket. A dry socket occurs after a tooth has been removed or extracted by the dentist.

If a tooth comes loose on its own, normally the gum heals immediately over. But if it is actually removed, especially if it is a difficult extraction, then what happens immediately after the extraction is that the dentist would divert stitch over the hole or he would actually put a, like a protective plug over it which you would normally wear in your mouth biting on it for about an hour afterwards and a lot of times, the instructions given after an extraction is that you do not bite it out or drink on it, eat until at least the next day. If unfortunately the socket is disturbed, the clot that forms which is a little bit like a scalp on the cut actually breaks down.

If it does break down, then the hole becomes apparent from the point of view that there is no tissue covering the hole which is normally the plug that has gone hard, and so we go into what we call a healing process where the socket instead of healing from across it actually heals from the base. Unfortunately, because the mouth is full of bacteria which is there naturally, what we find is as the clock breaks down, the bacteria pour in frankly, often happening in the lower jaw that in effect, the bacteria then infect the bone where the tooth have just been removed. This often means that after the extraction goes well, there is very little discomfort or pain in case of a dry socket often it actually appears to get increasingly more painful especially say 48 hours after the extraction.

After the tooth has been removed, the healing normally occurs where the hole where the tooth has been extracted fills with blood. This blood quickly conjures and forms a hard layer over the surface. This is going to occur literally within a few hours of the extraction being taken out.

Now unfortunately, if this breaks down, then the bacteria pour into the hole and often infect the bone underneath or where the tooth used to be, the root used to be. How do we know this is happening? Normally, extraction goes well and the healing takes place by the blood clotting. Normally, you will get relatively pain, certainly after about 12 hours.

In case of a dry socket, you actually find the pain getting worse as time goes on and often crescendo within about 48 hours. Now at this stage, the remedy would be to visit the dentist and say look you know, can you have a look at where you have taken the teeth out because it appears to be exceedingly painful, it actually looks a mess as well. Often, it looks like a yellowy pussy and you can actually still see quite a distinct hole.

The dentist often may have to irrigate out all the debris that has been collected in the hole and often you might need some antibiotics to actually stop the jawbone getting infected around them. The other unfortunate thing about dry socket is that it will take a lot longer for the bone to reform following the extraction. This can happen and it really is not any body's fault.

This is a little bit of advice on dry socket and how you can mitigate the problem. .