Maintaining good oral health is one of the best ways to enhance your overall well-being. It can help reduce the risk of heart diseases, high blood pressure, oral cancer, diabetes, etc. That’s why health advisors insist that everyone should take good care of their teeth. One of the best ways to achieve that is through tooth extraction.
This article explains the reasons you may consider tooth extraction. You’ll also learn how to prepare for the procedure, aftercare best practices, and how to find the right dental hospital. Before that, though, it would be a good idea to define it first. Thus, continue reading to get enlightened.
Tooth Extraction Defined
Tooth extraction is a medical procedure that involves pulling a tooth from its socket by a dental surgeon. This can be done manually or using forceps.
After all other treatments, like root canals and fillings, have failed, the dentist will likely recommend a tooth extraction. That’s to say that tooth extraction shouldn’t be the first option to treat a dental problem. It should come last after trying all other types of dental treatment. For more information about tooth extraction, you can visit https://www.grovecitydentalofblackfoot.com/extractions/ or any other similar sites.
Reasons For Tooth Extraction
Any human being has two sets of teeth: milk and permanent. Milk teeth are found in young children, and if they loosen, they fall out naturally at the age of five. This paves the way for another set of teeth, the permanent teeth.
Permanent teeth are meant to last for a lifetime, but that’s not always the case. Some scenarios may require tooth extraction. Some of these include:
Decayed Tooth
Washing and flossing your teeth is one of the best ways to maintain good oral health. A plaque might form if you fail to do so, causing tooth decay. Common signs of a decayed tooth include intense swelling, redness, and intense pain.
Visit your dentist should you experience any of these symptoms as proper medical attention may still help save your teeth. However, the dentist will recommend tooth extraction if all other treatments fail. They will pull your tooth and probably replace it with a dental bridge. When such becomes an option, it may be time to check out this dentist in fort lauderdale.
Injured Tooth After An Accident
Getting into an accident is a bad experience that no one would want to go through. It can be car collisions, slips/falls, sports injuries, etc. However, these can happen to anyone every day.
An accident may cause injuries to most of your body parts, including your teeth. This happens when you get broken, chipped, or loosened teeth. Thus, ensure you see a dental practitioner after an accident.
After determining that your tooth was injured in an accident, the doctor may recommend dental bonding, bridges, and crowns as restorative solutions. However, these treatments might not apply if the tooth was severely injured. Your doctor will likely have you undergo a tooth extraction.
Impacted Tooth
An impacted tooth is another reason you want to visit a dentist for an extraction. This occurs when some teeth, usually third molars or wisdom, are blocked from coming out of the gum.
A tooth can be partially or fully impacted. Whichever is the case, the best way to deal with impacted teeth is through extraction.
Impacted teeth don’t always cause severe symptoms. However, if such a tooth is infected, you may experience bleeding gums, bad breath, and jaw pain. Therefore, when you see one of these signs, you might be having impacted teeth. It’s therefore important to visit a doctor who might recommend a tooth extraction.
Overcrowded Teeth
Overcrowding of teeth could be another reason why extraction is necessary. This occurs when there isn’t enough space in your mouth for teeth to grow straight. This condition is also known as crooked or misaligned teeth.
There are three forms of overcrowded teeth: mild, moderate, and severe.
Mild crowding is when one tooth in the jaw is slightly rotated. Meanwhile, moderate is when two or three teeth overlap. Severe crowding is when most teeth in your mouth overlap.
A dentist can recommend metal braces or invisible aligners to help straighten the overcrowded teeth. However, in a severe situation, extraction could be the best solution. This happens when there isn’t enough space or room to enhance the alignment of your teeth.
Gum Disease
Like tooth decay, gum disease is also caused by plaque build-up or bacteria in the mouth. When left untreated, gum disease can cause loosened teeth. Hence, the gum won’t be able to support your tooth effectively.
You can leave the loose tooth to fall out on its own. However, extraction is your best option here. This is because you wouldn’t want the problem in the affected tooth to spread to other teeth in your mouth.
Preparing For Tooth Extraction
As explained in the previous section, there are many reasons why a tooth has to be extracted. Yet if you want a smooth procedure, it would be good to prepare well in advance.
Here are tips to help prepare for your tooth extraction procedure:
Organize Your Finances
You will need to pay a service fee to the dentist for your tooth extraction. You’ll also need to buy medicine and pay for your transport costs.
Research to determine the total amount required for the whole process. From there, have a plan on how you’ll raise that money. That could be applying for a medical loan, finding love money, seeking financial aid from charitable institutions, etc.
However, if you can’t identify where to get money to pay the bill, you may want to update your medical cover insurance. Several dental health facilities allow patients to cover their bills using insurance policies. Organizing your finances allows you to pay the hospital bill on time to avoid a delay in tooth extraction procedures.
Share Your Medical History With Your Dentist
Another thing you need to remember when preparing for tooth extraction is to share your medical history with the dentist. This will enable them to give you care tailored specifically for your condition. Therefore, if you’ve got hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, or are susceptible to bacterial infection, ensure your doctor has all that information at their disposal. This will help prevent any potential complications.
Avoid Eating Before The Procedure
Sometimes you might be tempted to eat before visiting a dentist for tooth extraction, although this isn’t recommended to prevent nausea during and after the procedure. This is especially true if you’re considering having your tooth extracted under general treatment.
On the other hand, it’s not completely prohibited to eat when removing a tooth under a local anesthetic. However, before you eat any food items that come your way, you may first want to seek a doctor’s recommendation or advice.
Avoid Smoking For 24 Hours Before And After Tooth Extraction
Have you tried to quit smoking for many years without bearing any fruits? If yes, this is now an excellent opportunity to completely stop smoking. This is because you’ll be required to stay about 48 hours without touching a piece of cigarette.
There can be many negative effects of smoking when undergoing a tooth extraction procedure. For instance, it can lead to oral cancer and dry socket. This will be costly to treat. Besides, such conditions can even lead to death. It’s therefore essential to avoid smoking for several hours before and after the tooth extraction procedure.
Purchase Painkillers
You’ll likely feel some mild pain in the socket after tooth extractions. You can also develop some headaches. Hence, you may want to take painkillers to relieve pain.
There are different types of painkillers you can take after tooth extraction. However, not all of them are suitable for your body as some can affect your health. Make sure you seek a doctor’s advice before purchasing any painkillers.
Apart from painkillers, you may also want to carry antibiotics with you. This is important because the tooth extraction procedure may expose your inner tissues to bacteria, leading to infections.
Aftercare And Recovery Best Practices After Tooth Extraction
After a successful tooth extraction procedure, the doctor will advise you on aftercare best practices to quicken the recovery process. Generally, you should:
Avoid Strenuous Activities
One of the best aftercare best practices to help you recover is to avoid strenuous activities. These may include digging in the garden, going to the gym, etc.
Participating in such activities may cause excessive bleeding. So, the affected region will likely take longer to heal than it should. Thus, it’s vital to skip these activities for two to three days after tooth extraction.
Eat Soft Food Only
Another way to help you recover quickly after a tooth extraction is to eat soft food only. Hard food items will likely cause more harm to your tooth socket, thus prolonging the healing process.
Some of the soft food items you can consider include eggs, rice, porridge, milk, and yogurt. The dentist should advise you on the best time to resume eating hard and crunchy food items.
Get Enough Sleep
Sleeping is another essential strategy to speed up recovery after tooth extraction. It helps promote the immune system to repair damaged tissues. Therefore, with better sleep, the affected region will heal faster.
One of the best ways to have a night of better sleep could be by participating in physical activities. Yet this might not be applicable, especially on the first night after tooth removal. However, you can find other effective ways to promote your sleep. For instance, use a pillow to support your body and increase your comfort. This will help you to have enough sleep to heal quickly.
Take Medicines As Directed By The Dentist
After tooth extraction, the dentist will likely give you some medicines to improve your recovery process. However, the medicines won’t help you if you don’t follow the doctor’s advice.
Always ensure you take medicines as directed by your doctor. For instance, if the dentist requires you to take some tablets every six hours, make sure you do this without fail. It will enable you to recover quickly and avoid bacterial infections and other health problems.
Finding A Suitable Dental Facility For Tooth Extraction
If you want to have a smooth tooth extraction process, you must visit a reputable and experienced dental professional. There are several dental facilities, but not all can provide the services you require. It’s therefore essential to be careful when selecting a health facility for your tooth extraction procedure.
Some of the best ways to find a dental facility include:
Reading Online Reviews
As noted earlier, tooth extraction is one of the best ways to address some oral health complications. Yet sometimes, the process can cause more problems than good. This is especially when you select the wrong dental facility or whose staff aren’t committed to offering premium services. That’s where online reviews come in.
Reading online reviews involves finding out what other patients say about a particular dental facility. In other words, it means reading comments or feedback online.
Online reviews can either be positive or negative. Positive ones show satisfaction, while negative ones may reflect poor services or rude staff. Find a dental facility with an established positive review if you want better services and get the best value for your money.
Asking For Recommendations
Apart from reading online reviews, you can ask for recommendations to find the best dental facility in the region. This involves connecting with other patients you know who have had their teeth extracted in the past and requesting them to direct you to the best facility.
Although asking for recommendations can help you connect with the most recognized dental health facilities, it would be good not to make a final choice based on their recommendations alone. Investigate further to identify a suitable one from the list.
Takeaway
Tooth extraction is a procedure performed by a dental professional that pulls out your tooth from your mouth. It’s the best option to deal with impacted, severely decayed, injured, and overcrowded teeth. You can follow the advice in this article to prepare for tooth extraction and how to improve your recovery process.