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Keeping Your Teeth White Between Dental Visits

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Keeping Your Teeth White Between Dental Visits

Taking care of your teeth might seem mundane, but without enough attention, those pearly whites of yours can easily turn tinged and stained. Sure, having your teeth cleaned every few months at your dentist's office is a great start to maintaining a beautiful smile, but it isn't enough to keep each tooth pearly white on an ongoing basis. Now, don't get me wrong – you don't have to spend an arm and a leg on professional maintenance in order to get the results you want. You can use a variety of methods at home, like creating your own whitening mouthwash, that can help to keep you teeth white between dentist visits. Hopefully, the tips and techniques offered on this blog is enough to get you the results that you're after.

6 Things You Should Expect After Wisdom Tooth Removal

4 November 2016
 Categories: Dentist, Blog

Are you having your wisdom teeth removed in the coming weeks? It's reasonable that you may be worried about it. It is a surgery, after all. Fortunately, the procedure is not as scary as it may seem. In fact, you are likely to forget about it after the first two weeks. Not sure what to expect? Here are a few things waiting for you:

1. Several Hours of Bleeding

Following any tooth extraction, you may experience slight bleeding for the following hours. In fact, you will probably leave the dentist's office with gauze filling in the place where the tooth was. If bleeding goes on much longer than a few hours, you should call the dentist.

2. Swelling in the Face

Swelling is perfectly normal immediately after having a tooth extracted. You can work to minimize swelling with ice, but it should go away after the first day. If swelling persists, apply some heat after the first day. This will soothe the mouth.

3. Numbness for a Few Hours

The dentist will inject a local anesthesia, which may leave you feeling slightly numb after the procedure. You may notice puffiness in your cheeks, but it will slowly diminish.

4. A Soft Diet

You should always stick to liquids right after surgery to avoid accidentally biting yourself while under anesthesia. In the next few days, you will be stuck with soft foods. You may want to cook up some yummy mashed potatoes, jell-o, and purees so that you  have something delicious to eat post-surgery.

5. Removal of Stitches

Some stitches are meant to dissolve on their own, but you should ask your dentist to be sure that you do not have to come in to have them removed. If you do have to have the stitches removed, don't worry. It is a virtually painless process.

6. Contact your dentist if you have problems.

Your mouth should heal within the coming weeks. If you are still experiencing pain after the first week or so, get in touch with your dentist about possible complications. Look for signs of a dry socket, which occurs when clots do not form at the extraction site.

Wisdom tooth surgery can be a difficult ordeal, but thousands upon thousands of people endure it each year. You are not alone in your concern, but your dentist will be happy to answer any questions about wisdom tooth removal. Dental surgeons want you to go into the procedure feeling comfortable.