Hi Nicm,
Again, all of your symptoms including the elevation in pain are classic of a dry socket and the preferred treatment is to debride the area (this is more than irrigating it with his syringe) and then pack it with a pre medicated sterile piece of gauze. That would bring you instinct relief. This packing is usually removed and redone a few times within 7-10 days.
When the oral surgeon debrides the socket for the initial packing he scraps the bone a bit and the tissue to get it to bleed so it forms another clot. The dry socket occurs when the original clot has been disturbed and the bone literally becomes dry.
As I said, a dry socket will eventually heal on it's own but it can be painful for many days and the bone may not heal properly.
I am sorry to tell you all of this after the fact .... your oral surgeon should be the one explaining this to you.
How is the pain today?
Bryanna
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicm15
Hi Bryanna,
You are such an angel! 
When I saw him on Tuesday and mentioned the dry socket symptoms that was when he asked me was it the worst pain in my life? He said on a scale of 1-10. I said about a 8 or a 9 and then he asked what was the pain level after taking percocet and I replied probably about a 7. So I guess he felt since I had reduction in pain after taking the pain medication that I didn't have dry socket. *shrugs* He didn't irrigate the area or anything he just took a quick look inside with the small mirror and told me to stay the course with my pain meds and etc.
Today he conducted a more thorough exam and that's when he said I had an infection inside the socket. That was when he pushed the syringe deep down into the socket and forcefully pushed the salt water into the socket (I guess that's the debriding process?) It was so painful, it felt like something inside my mouth had exploded. He had me spit the debris into a cup and I saw a bunch of hard brown pieces inside the cup. He didn't pack the socket with anything after doing this he basically told me to keep doing the salt water at home and continue the pain meds and start the antibiotics ASAP.  |