Tips to Improve Dental Health After Dental Surgery

After undergoing dental surgery, it might not be pleasant for you. Pain in teeth or jawbones, swollen gums, bleeding teeth are common after a dental surgery. But if you take enough care, the pain and wounds heal quickly. During this period, it is crucial to maintain an infection free environment in the mouth because, it is not possible to provide a sterilized condition there.

In this article, we discuss tips to follow for maintaining oral health after undergoing a dental procedure.

Avoid rinsing for the first 24 hours of dental surgery

After having undergone dental procedure, avoid rinsing your mouth for at least 24 hours. Next day, add ½ teaspoon common salt to a cup of lukewarm water. Take a little water into mouth and gently move your head to allow water to run around in the mouth. Rinse four to six times a day for removing germs.

Avoid noisy rinsing, it may hurt gums where surgery was performed. Stay away from eating stored foods, having alcohol and tobacco for at least two weeks.

If you had root canal treatment or gum graft, avoid using a brush for at least a week. To get rid of bad breath, soak a sterilized cloth in salt-water and gently clean around teeth. Avoid touching jawbones where surgery was performed. If you do, it may cause infection and the surgical procedure done may fail.

Avoid opening the mouth forcibly

After dental surgery, your jawbones tend to become stiff and unpleasant because, dental procedure makes your mouth to open wide for long hours. This makes hard to open mouth even for a week.

To cure this difficulty (in opening mouth), massage gently on the face and around the jawbones using a moist cloth. Forcing your mouth to open wide will not help.

Avoid chewing on the wound

The dentist may cover your tooth with gauze pad to stop bleeding from the portion where surgery was done. You need to remain calm for at least an hour, take rest and keep your head raised to stop excess bleeding. Since you do not make any movement in the oral cavity, saliva and blood get mixed up and it gives you an appearance of bleeding. During this period, avoid chewing on the gauze pad or on the wounded portion, no matter how much it irritates you. When your gums are bleeding, avoid hard and chewy foods.

Avoid applying heat near the swollen area

Dental surgery may cause swelling near wounded portion. This swelling may remain for at least a week depending on the extent of surgery. The swollen jaw muscle gives you unusual facial appearance and this might tempt you to apply heat to reduce the swollen area.

But in reality, applying massage with hot material tends to increase blood flow, which in turn increases swelling. Massage gently around the jaw muscles on the face. Give cold massage using an ice cube in a piece of cloth or towel for 10 minutes and repeat the process for every hour. This helps you restore jaw muscles rather than increasing swelling.

Take soft food – rich in protein and vitamins

To aid healing of wounds, your diet should include soft foods that are rich in proteins and vitamins. The soft food sources include milk products, eggs, bananas, fruit juices, etc. Have vitamin supplements like vitamin C, which helps heal wounds. Have multi-vitamin pills, at least once a day. Try to chew and take in food from opposite side of wounds. If you allow food on wounded region it could lead to growth of germs around the wound. Rinse your mouth with lukewarm salt-water.

Avoid placing finger or other objects on teeth

Avoid using fingers, tongue, cheek, or other objects on teeth, even if it irritates you after dental surgery. Frequent touching with fingers could cause infection around the wound. To clean near the wounded region, use sterilized cloth. Replace the cloth for every use.

Ensure to get checked by qualified dentists. This will help you improve the over-all oral health condition with fewer complications.