Most dental operations are routine treatments, and infection control techniques are as good as they’ve ever been, thanks to daily improvements in medical services. Infections do happen, and it is your responsibility as a patient to know what else to monitor so you could get follow-up treatment if necessary. Dental experts at MLD’s clinic located in Burwood would advise you that the best approach to guarantee that your recovery goes off without a hitch is to heed your oral surgeon’s recommendations and be aware of the indications of infection. But what if your dental surgery really goes south, like the presence of infection after wisdom teeth removal?
Oral Surgery: Do you Really Need it?
When talking about dental procedures, oral surgery is quite usual. And, the reason you do it varies widely. Your dentist or oral surgeon performs surgery to treat common causes of pain and discomfort in the mouth to stop or prevent it from becoming severe. The most well-known type of oral surgery is tooth extraction, which involves the removal of teeth that are broken, decaying, or impacted (such as your molars).
Your surgeon can also perform oral surgery to treat jawbone and joint problems (temporomandibular or TMJ pain), address bite issues (overbites or underbites), correct sleep and breathing problems, and replace missing teeth with dental implants. You can also undergo dental surgery procedures to treat facial injuries so that the injured region can be rebuilt or restored.
Just think: good dental health preempts better overall health. With this mantra, you should consider living up to your scheduled appointments and dental treatments with a qualified dentist. Seeking the expert care of professional dentists seals the deal.
Wisdom Tooth Extraction: The Procedure
Since tooth extraction is an inevitable event for all of us, we would think that it can join the safe and simple dental procedures we will have in our lifetime. The truth is, this dental procedure basically involves the same steps every single time, with the end result having lost a tooth.
The third set of your molars are the ones called your wisdom teeth. These third molars are the big teeth in the rear of your mouth. The third molars erupt the last. They got the name wisdom teeth because they usually appear between the ages of 17 to 25, where you already reached the age of maturity. If you need more fast facts about your wisdom teeth, visit this website to get all the tidbits to feed your curiosity.
Wisdom tooth extraction may look and sound more complicated than the usual tooth removal. This is because the positioning of the tooth is farther, and the extraction site is least accessible to the dentist. The tooth that’s needed to be extracted is comparably bigger than most teeth. However, the same procedure applies, except for the fact that the dentist may need to section it or break it off for fast and safe extraction. If impacted, he may also need to slice the gum tissue above the molars to extract the tooth.
The wisdom tooth removal may last for 20 minutes or more, depending on the level of impaction and other complications that the tooth brings to the table. If you need to get an expert to perform your tooth extraction, try this link and get in touch with our recommended dental professionals.
Wisdom Tooth Removal: What could actually Go Wrong?
Like any surgical procedure, you should foresee complications and risks involved in it. From the simplest minor operations on your skin to the most complicated and delicate eye surgeries (learn more by going to this website), no procedure cannot promise perfection and freedom from complications. This includes prolonged bleeding, persistent swelling, fever, anesthesia effects like numbness of the lips, tongue, or chin, jaw pain, dry socket, as well as infection. These do not always occur, but they do, we need to address them as soon as possible. So, let us discuss the two most alarming complications: dry socket and bone infection.
Dry socket
Once you have your tooth removed, a blood clot forms on top of the tooth socket, sealing the extraction site. This blood clot prevents food debris and other foreign objects to get lodged in the empty tooth socket or hole and prevents further bleeding as well. Having a dry socket happens when the blood clot that fills the hole let’s removed. The lack of the clot means losing a ‘Band-Aid’ within the tooth socket during healing, and this might expose the nerves and cause pain. A few days after your tooth removal, if you discover an exposed bone in your socket or if you suffer significant discomfort, see your dentist at once to get it checked.
Infection
The emergence of dental or socket infection is a further possible outcome after an extraction. This is due to the possibility of germs entering the body following any dental surgery. Halitosis (bad breath), altered taste (weird sourness or bitterness in your palate), unexplained fever, excessive bleeding, sensitivity to warm and cold temperatures, and inflammation or soreness of the gums and jaw near the surgical site are just some of the signs of infection you need to watch out for.
Treatment for Infection after Wisdom Tooth Removal
Your dentist determines the management for bone infection based on the severity of the illness. Your dentist may require surgery to drain and clean the diseased region. Antibiotic medications could become sufficient in some situations.
In some cases, your oral surgeon may also require a bone graft. This surgical procedure uses a transplanted bone to repair and rebuild the damaged bone. Following treatment for osteomyelitis, you may need to see your dentist on a regular basis to be healthy.
References:
Wisdom Teeth Infection: What to Do.
https://www.healthline.com/health/wisdom-teeth-infection
What to know about a wisdom tooth infection.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/wisdom-tooth-infection
Bone Infection After a Tooth Extraction: Symptoms, Treatment, and Prevention.
After Dental Extractions or Wisdom Teeth Removal.
http://www.nshealth.ca/sites/nshealth.ca/files/patientinformation/0646.pdf