Originally Posted by Nicm15

Hello everyone, I encountered this place after performing numerous google searches and I kept coming across this board. I noticed the people here were very friendly and helpful, especially Bryanna (I hope she sees this).

I had my wisdom teeth removed last Wednesday (27th). The week prior to that I was started on a 10 day 1200mg a day of Clindamycin due to an infection in one of my wisdom teeth that was cracked. I had reasonable pain the day of surgery and the following day. Around Friday afternoon I noticed an increased intensity of pain, I was told there was nothing to worry about. By Sunday morning the pain had increased even more it felt like a jackhammer being taken to my jaw and the pain radiated up into my ears and my head. I did some research on the internet and based on the symptoms I thought I might have dry socket.

I saw the surgeon on Tuesday for a f/u they basically asked was it the worst pain I ever had in my life, and I had to say honestly no but it certainly wasn't something that was remotely tolerable without taking 2 percocet ever 6 hours. They took a quick look and said, no you don't have dry socket but you do have some food debris back there. They gave me a syringe and told me to keep taking my pain meds and irrigate the area with warm salt water.

Now here's where things are confusing to me. I went home and irrigated the area and they were right there was a lot of debris in the sockets. Upon irrigating I could actually see inside the sockets, I noticed one of the sockets had a yellow/brownish color on the inside of it (different side from the one that had the cracked tooth) and this funny colored debris would not come out no matter how many times I flushed it. So I figured it was a blood clot or scab. I continued to have the same level of pain for the following days.

Today I go for a f/u and reported everything was still the same symptom wise, they say well we'll go ahead and treat you for dry socket. They look inside my mouth and they say oh you have an infection inside that socket. They put the syringe deep down into my socket and forcefully pushed the salt water from the syringe (it was so painful, I'm tearing up now just thinking about it) so now I'm on another round of antibiotics and of course still taking pain medication around the clock.

This whole thing is taking longer than I was originally told and I HAVE to be back at work on Monday. I can't afford to miss anymore time out of work. Is it possible for me to go the ER and perhaps get some antibiotics by IV? Would this form of treatment work faster so that I can be remotely functional by Monday? And the other thing that's really bothering me is could the surgeon tell whether or not I had dry socket WITHOUT irrigating the area first so they can see into the socket? I know this is a long post but I wanted to explain the situation as thorougly as possible. Thanks in advance for any help that can be provided.