Part Two: Briar Gets a Dry Socket After Wisdom Tooth Surgery

It wasn't all that bad.

Well, well, well,

We meet again.

I did not expect there to be a part two to this wisdom tooth fiasco, yet here we are!

If you want to catch up on the last post I wrote, it shall be conveniently placed here:

Briar's Positive Wisdom Tooth Surgery

While I overall have had a positive experience, it wouldn’t be the full picture unless I also shared what it was like to get a dry socket. At least, what my experience with dry socket has been like.

First, let’s define our terms. I’m going to be saying “dry socket” a lot:

Dry socket is a complication of tooth extraction where the blood clot comes off too early and exposes the jawbone and nerves to food, germs, and anything else from your mouth.

It can be a very painful condition. Most people on the internet say it was a 9-13(yes, 13 out of 10) on the pain scale… but it personally never got that bad for me. Regular over-the-counter pain medications also do nothing to counteract this type of pain.

20-30% of wisdom tooth extractions will end with a dry socket. That statistic relates primarily to bottom impacted wisdom teeth(which is what I had).

There are many things that the dentist will tell you not to do during your recovery to prevent this from happening.

Smoking, drinking from straws, spitting, eating spicy food, etc. Are all things that can increase your chances of losing the blood clots.

The dental assistant had added after her long list:

“But you can also do everything right and still end up with a dry socket.”

Yep, I followed all instructions, and yet here I am.

What happened?

The only part of my mouth that had caused me grief all week was the bottom left side. That’s where most of the swelling was, and it was the sorest.

But even by day 5, that had mostly subsided, and I was doing much better. I was in the clear!

Most dry sockets start on day 3-4, so I genuinely thought I was safe.

Towards the end of yesterday(Day 5/Friday), I was becoming increasingly bothered by the bottom right side of my mouth. I took another ibuprofen, I was icing it, and I was just confused about why it hurt.

It hadn’t hurt all week.

I went to bed early because the pain was wearing me out. It wasn’t awful, but it was certainly not my favorite.

I lay down, and it seemed to get worse.

My internal monologue was something else:

“Was that pain radiating to my ear?”

“Does my ear really hurt or is that just my imagination?”

“It’s day 5; the only reason why it would hurt is if it’s a dry socket.”

“I’ll just Google it again to check the signs of dry socket.”

Everything I read pretty much checked out. I was having constant pain radiating from my jaw to my ear and even to my temple.

I was starting to get concerned that it really was a dry socket and everything I read was pretty much like:

“Call your dentist immediately.”

“Get seen right away.”

“If not treated, you’ll get a terrible infection.”

I prayed I would be able to fall asleep.

Next thing I know, I woke up this morning(Saturday) in no pain!

My first thought was:

“Did it go away? Do I not have a dry socket?”

A few minutes later, the pain was back with a vengeance XD.

I’m pretty confident that the Lord answered my prayers and gave me a pain-free night so I could get some sleep. And I am very grateful for that.

I went to the bathroom, turned on my phone flashlight, and looked inside my mouth.

Sure enough! Yesterday morning there had been two visible blood clots, but when I looked today there was only one on the left side of my mouth.

The right side of my mouth had a hole, and I knew it led straight to my jawbone.

The dentist had told me that they had people on call 24/7 and that if I suspected I had an infection or a dry socket, I should call right away, even after hours.

I dialed the number despite it being the weekend.

Thankfully, I was able to have it looked at around 11 AM because the on-call dentist was seeing a couple of other patients at that time.

Throughout this morning, I was certainly in pain, but it never got to more than a 5/10. I do have quite a high pain tolerance, so maybe it would have been higher for other people, but it wasn’t all that bad. I was still eating, talking, singing, and doing whatever else Briar does.

We arrived at the oral surgery clinic, and it felt very illegal to be there while the building was closed. I even “snuck” in the back door. The place was completely dark and empty, just me and the dentist.

Eerie.

“There are a couple of kittens that are sometimes around the parking lot, and my kids are trying to catch them in case you’re wondering why they are running around all over the place.”

“Aw, how fun!” Immediately I thought: I wish I could be looking for kittens.

She had me lie down in the chair, and she peeked inside.

“Oh yeah, that is definitely a dry socket. I’m going to rinse it out with saline and then pack it.”

I was worried about this part. I was reading about it online before I arrived, and it sounded like it could be painful.

The saline was totally fine; I didn’t feel any pain.

It was slightly awkward, though, because she didn’t have someone else to suction my mouth, so I had to spit it all into a metal cup… but I also can’t spit yet(to protect the other blood clots), so it ended up being more of a drool. 🤣

Next was the medical dressing.

“The dressing is soaked in clove oil. It’s a natural antiseptic that will help keep the pocket nice and clean. I’m going to push it inside; it may sting a little, but it should feel better afterward. It’s going to be a very intense taste.”

“Oh, that’s fine; I love the taste of cloves.”

I glanced at her face, and the slight expression she made indicated that I had yet to have clove oil shoved into my jaw.

She began, and it was hardly painful at all! There was one moment when I flinched, but otherwise I hardly felt it.

The clove taste was very strong, but I genuinely thought it tasted good.

That was it! I think the whole process took about 5 minutes and was super chill.

I have to go back in on Monday for them to take it out and replace the dressing.

While we were driving home, I started to get nauseous from the taste, and I was in a constant achy type of pain. Still not unbearable, but it was enough that I wasn’t speaking much. The nausea was the worst part.

There is indeed such a thing as too much clove. I didn’t think it was possible.

The taste doesn’t go away; it is constantly like having a spoonful of cloves in your mouth.

We arrived back home, and my mom made me a chai smoothie.

“What seasonings do you like in this again?”

My dad shouted, “Cloves!!” from across the house.

“No, Mom! No cloves! I’ll take cardamom and cinnamon. My mouth will season the rest.”

It was actually quite delightful to drink that chai smoothie while my mouth tasted like cloves.

After about an hour, I was back to no pain, and the clove taste was considerably less noticeable. No more nausea.

I am currently in the least amount of pain that I have been in all week! Dry sockets are not nearly as scary as everyone online claims. As long as you don’t let them get infected and you get them packed ASAP, you should be in pretty good shape.

I haven’t needed to take any more pain medicine, and I should be totally fine until Monday. I go back to work Monday morning, and then I will have my dressing replaced. I will write an update here after that occurs.

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Today is Monday.

I had my appointment scheduled for this afternoon at 11:50 AM. I was so ready to go and see what they would do this time because I’m leaving on vacation tomorrow.

I left work, drove home, and waited around for a few minutes. I ate my three little potatoes (iykyk).

It’s always best to eat right before you go to the dentist because you never know what state you might leave in.

All of a sudden it’s 10 minutes before I am supposed to leave and my phone is getting bombarded with severe thunderstorm warnings saying things like:

Shelter in place in the basement! 3-inch hail! All humans and animals outdoors will be severely injured or killed!

My eyes went: 👀

Then I glanced out the window.

It didn’t look nearly as bad as all of that. It was just sprinkling, and I needed to get to the clinic for my appointment.

I decided to just drive through potential impending death and hope for the best.

Thankfully, it was a false alarm. A lot of surrounding areas did get hit really badly, but my area wasn’t one of them.

I made it safely and waited patiently in the lobby... as a normal, well-behaved citizen does (although I did miss the cool secret entrance access I had gotten on Saturday).

A dental assistant brought me back to the exact same room I was in the other day.

Before she got started, a girl and a guy entered the room(I assume they are in training). It was very crowded to have all four of us in there, so the dental assistant exclaimed: “Wow! This is quite the party!”

The guy dramatically said: “I don’t want to be a part of this party,” and then he left and never returned.

🤷‍♀️

Anyway,

I was told to lean back.

She took her tweezers and pulled the medicated dressing out of my socket. I didn’t even feel it.

Next she rinsed it out.

“By the way, I’m going on vacation tomorrow. The lady from Saturday mentioned something about a gel I could use?”

“Oh, okay! Yes, let me get that for you.”

She grabbed some syringes from the cabinet and set them on the counter.

She turned towards her student in training and said: “Normally I would repack the wound. Because she’s leaving and won’t be able to get it removed in a few days, we will have to give her the gel.”

She handed me an ancient round little mirror.

“Alright, I am going to have you use this mirror so you can see what I am doing. You’re going to need to do this yourself after every time you eat.”

She took the long gel syringe type thing, stuck the tip in the socket, and put a teeny little dab.

“That’s it!”

“So I need to do this after each time I eat?”

“Yes, and before you add the gel, you’ll need to use this syringe to rinse the area out with tap water.”

I am now in the possession of two syringes and responsible for my own medical care. How thrilling!

I left the clinic and noted that I was in more pain than I was earlier. It felt like a slight ache with the occasional targeted twinge.

After about an hour, all of that pain was gone, and now I am back to normalcy. I wonder if that is what it will feel like after each time I add more gel?

I’m supposed to continue until the entire tube is empty. With how full this tube looks, I may be doing this for a while!

I’m going to go eat something now… You know, for science, so that I can see how easy or challenging it is to do this myself. I will report back momentarily🙂‍↕️.

Mmmkay, so I have learned some things.

When you drink water, it will pretty much also rinse out any gel you had in the socket.

The tap water syringe was fun, but I accidentally squirted water all over the wall because I didn’t realize how far the water was going to leap out of the tube. Enough ended up in my mouth; don’t worry.

After that was the gel.

She said I only needed a tiny dab, but I accidentally did more than that. It’s tough when you can’t really see all the way back in your mouth.

It was all very painless, and I will be very thankful when it is all healed and I no longer need to worry about it.

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The worst part is that I feel like I “failed” wisdom tooth surgery. I know you can’t really fail a surgery(unless you’re the one doing the surgery, of course), but I am still disappointed I got one after doing so well.

Such is life.

I think that is all I have to share about dry sockets! Thank you all for following along on this little journey and for all of your prayers! I am so grateful to be in this little Substack community that prays for each other when people need it❤️

Let’s pray there will not be a Part Three. 😉

-Briar Albaugh