About 25% of people in the world have at least one missing tooth. Tooth extraction is a common procedure that happens everywhere worldwide to remove teeth whose functions are no longer needed or are causing problems. Blacktown dentists claim to extract teeth of thousands of patients every year due to various dental issues.
Removing a tooth starts with administering anaesthesia to the patient’s mouth, numbing it before surgery begins. After this, an incision is made inside the mouth to expose the tooth; surrounding gum tissue is moved away before exposing the entire tooth. Then teeth are pried out with forceps or dental drills, depending on how healthy roots are. A small piece of bone may be removed along with the tooth in some cases. Once all remaining pieces of bone and soft tissues are cleared, the area is stitched with thread to close up. Most people recover from the surgery within a week, but few cases may take months to heal fully.
Why there’s a need for tooth extraction?
Tooth extraction may be necessary for various situations. Some of the most common causes for removal include:
– Congenital deformities in teeth or jaws affect chewing, speaking or appearance.
– Severe decay that cannot be saved by root canal treatment.
– Advanced periodontal disease reaches bone tissue around teeth.
– Tooth or teeth are lost in an accident.
– Advanced forms of tumours inside the mouth.
– Wisdom teeth, especially when causing problems with other teeth, cannot be treated any other way. Also, wisdom teeth might need to be removed if they grow in a twisted direction and cause damage to surrounding tissues.
– Pain resulting from impact to the jawbone or soft tissues inside the mouth, such as TMJ pains.
– Tooth removal is a medical treatment for conditions like cysts and tumours that may result in swelling of the face or neck.
What to expect before and after the removal of a tooth?
There are a few things that everyone going through the process needs to know. First, you will not be allowed any food or drinks for several hours before surgery begins. This is because anaesthesia may cause severe nausea or vomiting, which could lead to choking if the patient eats anything during the procedure. To avoid choking, the medical staff will ask you to drink a small amount of anti-nausea drug before surgery begins. The second thing is that local anaesthetic takes time to take effect, so the patient may feel pain after anaesthesia begins. But once numbing effects have been achieved, pain should not be a problem anymore. The patient will then feel relaxed and can even go to sleep during the procedure. Third, you will need to be patient as the entire surgery takes time, depending on how many teeth are involved.
After the surgery is done, there’s a chance that your gums may bleed a lot which can take up to several days before it stops. A bleeding pressure bandage is applied on your gums, and sometimes stitches may be placed inside the mouth. You will also need to:
– Keep head elevated higher than usual while resting and avoid any chewing for some time after surgery.
– Drink lots of water to avoid dehydration and sip on sports drinks to replenish lost electrolytes (sodium and potassium).
– Replace any lost tooth or teeth with a dental implant.
– Bring painkillers if you need help to ease the discomfort associated with surgery, but beware of taking too much ibuprofen as it may thin your blood and cause excessive bleeding after the surgery is over.
What should you do in case a tooth extraction complication happens?
In some rare cases, complications may occur during or after the surgery. It is essential to know when they happen to avoid further damage and get treated right away if needed.
– Swelling in your face and/or neck can persist even after a week ending up in an infected jaw bone tissue around the extracted tooth. An infection spreads inside the mouth and may cause tongue swelling, which makes it hard to breathe.
– Excessive bleeding from the surgery site cannot be stopped after applying a pressure bandage for several hours. Therefore, medical staff will need to infuse a certain amount of blood transfusion in significant blood loss before considering further treatment options.
– Sudden changes in gum colour, especially when dark purple or black. This condition is known as “dry gangrene,” a severe complication that may lead to tissue death and need medical staff special treatment.
– Blueish skin colour on the part of the face near the surgery site happens when oxygen intake is cut off during the procedure because all blood vessels in that area are blocked. The medical staff may try to remove stitches to reopen the blood flow and restore oxygen supply, but this is complicated.
– Swelling of tissues inside mouth mostly found around jawbone area where the surgery takes place. In some cases, there’s a chance for fluid leakage from stitches around the affected area.
– Blood clots may also form inside some blood vessels causing severe throat, tongue and/or jaw swelling after surgery is over. If swelling becomes so severe that the airway is blocked and the patient cannot breathe anymore, medical staff will need to remove stitches to open breathing passages again.
There are some other potential tooth extraction problems that usually don’t require immediate treatment. However, they should be reported to a dentist as soon as possible, like tenderness or pain in the surgical area, swelling inside the mouth, and unusual sensitivity to hot/cold food and drinks.
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