Yesterday we covered what a dry socket is.
(If you need to review just go back a post)
Today we will talk about how to prevent them and how to treat them.
First off is how to prevent them.
Do not chew food around the extraction.
Pushing large pieces of food into the socket is not good.
Do not smoke for the first 48 hours post surgery.
Bathing a wound in cancer causing smoke may cause the
slowing of wound healing and increase possible dry socket.
Minimize pressure changes into, or out of, your mouth.
Blood clots can get dislodged relatively easily.
Sucking on a straw, sneezing, coughing hard, etc. can alter the pressures
in your mouth and dislodge the clot.
Second how to treat a dry socket.
Well, since the problem with a dry socket is that the blood clot is gone
the first thing we do is try to re-introduce one.
You come back into the dentist office, get numbed up all over again,
we clean any debris out of the site, then we scrape around and make
you bleed all over again.
This fresh blood will form a new clot that hopefully will stay.
If that doesn't work there are medications that can be placed in the socket.
Basically it is just a function of time. The body just needs much longer
to heal from the extraction if you have a dry socket then if you did not have one.
Hopefully after any extraction your dentist gives you a list of do's and don'ts.
Make sure you follow them.
Do what the dentist says is the best way of staying away form the dry socket.
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