Hi Paula,

I am in the dental field and can offer you some information here.

It is important to stick with a nutritious soft food diet until the extraction sites close over with gum tissue. Eggs, oatmeal, fruits and cooked vegetables including potatoes, steamed or baked chicken or fish, things of those consistency.

Avoid any food that requires a lot of chewing, requires you to open your mouth very wide, is small enough to get lodged in the wounds, or is spicy hot.

Examples of food to avoid .... a sandwich, hamburger on a bun, steak, rice, anything with seeds, peanut butter, things like that. Spicy foods can burn the surgical wounds and cause sores to develop. Sugary foods and drinks have no nutritional value, they compromise the immune system and slow down the healing. So best to avoid those things too. Smoking and alcohol cause irritation to the wounds and slow down the healing also.

Regarding using the irrigation syringe.... it is imperative that you only use salt water or plain warm water and use it very gently. It is meant to be a gentle irrigation not an aggressive rinsing. If you stick with a soft food diet, be mindful of not chewing all the way in the back and rinse your mouth with warm salt water 3-4 times a day, you will be less likely to get food debris trapped in the surgical wounds. The less irritation they have the faster the gum tissue will close them over.

The stuff that came out of the lower socket during the rinsing could have been nothing to worry about. However, you rinsed too aggressively and should avoid doing that again. The white area that you see in that hole could be the clotting tissue (it turns from red to white) or it could be bone. If you develop any pain or swelling in that area, or a fever or any feeling of being unwell, then it is best to then see the oral surgeon to evaluate it. Otherwise, consider doing the suggestions that I have given you and be less aggressive with the irrigation and you should be okay.

Feel free to ask more questions if you have them...
Bryanna