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Alas! My Dental Saga Continues

Sporadic Sparkly

After completing my 5-day course of antibiotics last Sunday, I ended up contacting my dental practice the following day to express concerns. In addition to earache, I was continuing to experience pain inside my mouth, which over-the-counter pain relief was doing nothing to ease. From my perspective, I felt the only thing the antibiotics had done was rid me of a foul taste in my mouth, caused by my "small" post-extraction dental infection. I was offered an emergency appointment for a couple of days later (1st November).

The dentist had a good look inside my mouth and said there was a tiny area of my gum that hadn't quite healed, which was exposing bare bone. He felt the exposed bone, along with post-extraction bruising was what was causing my pain. The solution was to pack the unhealed area of my gum with medicated 'dry socket' paste. Not particularly pleasant because the paste contains eugenol (found in clove oil), and tastes utterly revolting in my opinion.

In addition to acting as an anaesthetic, eugenol has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. Having had a dry socket on at least one occasion in the past, my experience of dry socket paste is that it initially caused a mild stinging sensation, followed by a fairly rapid easing of pain. Unfortunately, this was not my experience on Wednesday.

Currently, I am feeling rather frustrated and weary. Whilst I'm not in agony, the pain I'm experiencing is constant and proving impossible to distract myself from. It's exhausting, both physically and mentally. Come Monday, I think I'll be contacting my dental practice again to book another emergency appointment. Although it has only been just over a fortnight since the extractions were done, I'm thoroughly fed up with the fact that my dental pain doesn't appear to be easing and that OTC pain-relieving medication is proving to be ineffective.

For the record, I'm not after sympathy or dental advice, I just needed to let off steam and have a good old moan.

Parents

  • I had similar quite a few years ago, the gums had stitches in to pull the wounds together. Later one area wouldn’t stop bleeding. In the end I had two bath towels covered in blood and started feeling dizzy. I was taken to A&E, unfortunately the hospital didn’t have a dental unit. I got transferred to another hospital, by that time it was the early hours of the morning, an older dental nurse had a look, she said that she knew an old trick. She returned with a latex glove with one finger packed with crushed ice, I was told to gently bite on it. She told me the veins would contract and clot, after about 10 minutes the bleeding had stopped.

    I am surprised with you having molars removed that dissolving stitches weren’t used. I hope you feel better soon and can put this behind you. My old cockney Nan had no teeth, she said, “they ‘urt ya’ coming and they ‘urt ya’  leaving.” 

  • in reply to Roy

    Good Grief Roy, that sounds like a truly ghastly experience. I'm glad the nurse's trick did the... er... trick and helped to stop the bleeding.

    As I am a somewhat cynical person, I cannot help but wonder if the reason why dissolving stitches weren't used, or that my sockets weren't at least packed with medicated dry socket paste, was simply due to cost-cutting. In addition to being an NHS patient, I'm exempt from paying NHS fees. Rather than erring on the side of caution to prevent the risk of complications, maybe the way of doing things now has changed.

    It has to be said that the dental practice where the extractions took place is incredibly busy, as they see on average 300 patients each day. As I think my procedure had taken longer than anticipated, it has crossed my mind that perhaps the dental surgeon was mindful that there were other patients on their list that they needed to see after me. Therefore, if they had spent time on preventive measures (i.e. stitches), it might have resulted in them not having enough time to treat other patients. 

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  • in reply to Roy

    Good Grief Roy, that sounds like a truly ghastly experience. I'm glad the nurse's trick did the... er... trick and helped to stop the bleeding.

    As I am a somewhat cynical person, I cannot help but wonder if the reason why dissolving stitches weren't used, or that my sockets weren't at least packed with medicated dry socket paste, was simply due to cost-cutting. In addition to being an NHS patient, I'm exempt from paying NHS fees. Rather than erring on the side of caution to prevent the risk of complications, maybe the way of doing things now has changed.

    It has to be said that the dental practice where the extractions took place is incredibly busy, as they see on average 300 patients each day. As I think my procedure had taken longer than anticipated, it has crossed my mind that perhaps the dental surgeon was mindful that there were other patients on their list that they needed to see after me. Therefore, if they had spent time on preventive measures (i.e. stitches), it might have resulted in them not having enough time to treat other patients. 

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