The health of your teeth impacts the way you bite, chew, and the structure of your mouth and jawbone. It is because of this reason that our highly qualified dentistry office will provide you and your family with dental services to repair and maintain your teeth. However, there are cases where a dental extraction or tooth extraction cannot be avoided. A dental extraction is a dental procedure where one of our dentists removes a tooth from its socket in the bone. There are several reasons for a dental extraction such as having extra teeth blocking new teeth from coming in, severe decay within the tooth, wisdom teeth causing pain, or baby teeth preventing permanent teeth from coming in. A dental extraction can be very intimidating but this article will provide you with information on our office’s dental extraction procedure to help you ease your mind of the process.
Before the procedure, one of our dentists will take an x-ray of the area around the tooth that will be extracted so that they can plan the extraction. You will also need to provide our office with your medical and dental history and the list of medications you are currently taking. You may be prescribed antibiotics to take before you undergo surgery if you have an infection, a weak immune system, a long surgery, or a specific medical condition. It is very important that you do not smoke the day of your surgery since it may cause a painful condition called dry socket. You will also need someone to drive you home after the dental extraction.
There are 2 types of extractions; a simple extraction and a surgical extraction. A simple extraction is the extraction of a tooth that is visible in your mouth and is performed by one of our skilled dentists. For this procedure, you will most likely be injected with a local anesthetic and may or not be given drugs to relax. Then your dentist will loosen the decayed tooth with an instrument called an elevator. After the tooth is loosened, your dentist will use forceps to remove the tooth. A surgical extraction is commonly used for a tooth that is broken off at the gum or has not emerged into your mouth yet; this type of extraction is commonly done by one of our highly qualified oral surgeons. Since this procedure is a surgery, you will be given a local anesthetic and may have anesthesia through an IV. Your surgeon will then make acute into your gums and extract your tooth. The extraction may require the removal of some bones around the tooth or cutting the tooth in half. During a dental extraction, you will feel pressure but most likely no pain. After either type of extraction the area where your tooth was removed will be closed.
After your dental extraction, our dentists will give you very detailed instructions on what to do and what to expect after the extraction.You will be asked to bite done on some gauze for about 30 minutes to allow your blood to clot. Bleeding should continue for the next 24 hours and make sure not to disturb the wound’s clot. You may use ice to reduce swelling 20 minutes at a time and 20 minutes apart. You should eat soft and cool foods to prevent causing any pain in your mouth. 24 hours after the surgery, make sure to gently rinse your mouth with salt water to clean your wound.
In conclusion, our dental extraction procedure will remove your decayed tooth in one of 2 ways and your mouth will require special treatment until your mouth is fully healed. We hope that this information will help you feel more confident for your dental extraction and answer any questions you may have. Make sure to call our office if you have any concerns; we are happy to help!