On Thursday Jan 14th I had 3 wisdom teeth extracted. My upper right, and both lower were extracted. They were all impacted and under the gum, the bottom were both coming in at about a 45 degree angle and has partially erupted.

I was prescribed amoxicillin and vicodin. By Day 3 post Op my right side had swollen up to about it's peak, but by Day 4 there was no improvement. I scheduled an appointment with the surgeon on 1/18 and he just opened my mouth and told me "A little pain is very normal, it was a very badly impacted tooth". I felt stupid but was reassured. I hadn't been able to sleep in 3 days because of the pain and had a slight fever.

Day 5,6 and 7 the swelling remained the same and the pain got worse. Sometimes it would become so excruciatingly bad that I would just have to sit up in bed. I was sweating so much during my sleep that my bed would become somewhat soaked.

Finally on Day 8 my normal post op appointment arrived and I told the surgeon of my issues. He said it looks like a "baby infection" but the problem is I can barely open my jaw now. The range of motion has decreased tremendously. He asked me to force my jaw open (which was excruciatingly painful) and then he proceeded to squeeze the infected area like a pimple (worst pain of my life). He then took another panoramic X-ray which showed the wound completely unhealed (A good thing? infection is out int he open). Then he squeezed it out several more time and suctioned out the puss. I believe he irrigated with Chlorohexidine Gluconate (I've tasted perioguard many times).

My surgeon is extremely abrasive and unhelpful but I don't think he's negligent. My biggest complaint is that he made me feel like I was wasting his time and a baby for complaining about the pain on post op day 4, when I believe it should have been clear at that point that I had an infection. I have been prescribed Clindamycin 300mg for 7 days and began that yesterday taking 4 pills (3 per day, a double dose on the first time).

Immediately following the squeezing out of the pus, I felt better. THe pain was bad but it felt like good pain, the overall terrible feeling in my body had disappeared. I slept well last night and although I sweat a lot and had a fever it was much less than the night before.

Now I have two questions I'm praying you can help me with. One, I don't trust my surgeon, what should I do? There are 3 partners at his office and he is the youngest, should I attempt to switch? I would like as little hassle as possible but this surgeon just instills fear in me and is borderline innappropriate/negligent at times in my opinion. I think the nurses know he's very abrasive becuase the looks on their faces when he treats me the way he does, plus when he was squeezing out my pus the nurse asked if he should use clean instruments after the first manual drainage and he just ignored her. Should I just switch surgeons all together?

Second, I have an appointment with him in an hour and will update, but what can I do on my own? Simply salt water rinses? What should I be eating and how? It's very hard to open my mouth making brushing my teeth next to impossible, but I do so about 4-5X a day and i salt water rinse 4-5X a day also. The problem is the part I really can't reach with the tooth brush is the infected area so I don't know if it's doing any good. When I wake up I definitely have that disgusting bacteria mouth taste. Could this be a jaw bone infection? The swelling on my cheek is extremely rigid and begins 2 teeth before my first molar. (So it starts at the 4th tooth, then there's 3 teeth behind it and the 5th tooth woulda been the extracted wisdom tooth).


Any help is greatly appreciated!