Wisdom tooth extraction: is it always this painful?

[thepeopleversuswork]

I had a wisdom tooth removed under LA last week. It's been almost unbearably painful for a whole week. I've been alternating strong painkillers every two hours (paracetomol + codeine then ibuprofen at two hour intervals) and its barely touching the sides.

Went to an emergency dentist yesterday and they identified something called a "dry socket" which they treated with what I think was antiobiotic paste of some sort.

24 hours later and one visit to my regular dentist later its still nowhere near starting to get better. My dentist is quite matter of fact and says the dry socket has been treated and I just have to be patient. But its quite hard: its impossible to eat anything other than cereal or noodle soup, I can't sleep or work and I can barely talk. How long is it going to hurt this much for?

I had a wisdom tooth out as a child and I'm pretty sure it was nowhere near this bad. Would be keen to hear some reassurance on this please because I'm at the limits of my ability to cope.

Bump: anyone? I am at my wits end.

I had my last wisdom tooth removed in November and it was the worst pain ive ever experienced with a tooth! The other three were removed in quick succession and I hardly felt a thing.
Like you I found it unbearable but after three weeks (sorry!) it just went..
maybe try your GP for stronger painkillers? Sorry it's not much help but a little solidarity for your pain!

Clove oil and codeine were the only thing that eased my dry socket pain! Clove oil was like liquid magic for me.

Sorry, no experience of dry socket specifically but I had a wisdom tooth out under sedation and ended up with an infection under the stitches, needing antibiotics.
I took Nurofen Plus from a pharmacy until the antibiotics kicked in

Oh bless you, was it a bottom or top tooth?

Unfortunately I’ve had a lot of extractions in my time, the more imbedded the tooth is, the worse the recovery is I find. Essentially, with Dry Socket you’ve not been recovering at all all, due to the blood clot becoming dislodged, so yesterday was like Day 1 of healing. It normally takes a good 72 hours for things to start to significantly improve after initial treatment for dry socket in my experience. But it will get better!

I usually bargain on not being able to do much involving talking, or eating anything other than very soft foods or porridge etc for at least a week.

I would strongly suggest you speak to your GP about some stronger analgesia if you’re able to - Tramadol is the only thing that gets me through nasty tooth extraction recoveries. My last one involved surgery and stitches in all sorts of places

You say it's just 24 hours since the surgery was done so quite recent. As wisdom tooth removal is even more invasive than other teeth I would wait. Try cold, non-alcoholic drinks. Break some icecubes up and eat small pieces at a time.

If you have any wheat bags warm one and hold it to the affected area of the face.

No, it's not. I had two taken out at the dentist, and could have gone back to work that afternoon.

Dry socket always sounds horrendous, though, you have my sympathies.

Thanks all. Good to know I am not losing my mind.

The surgery itself was done a week ago but the dry socket was fixed yesterday. It’s absolutely relentless. I asked the pharmacist and the strongest thing they would give we was Solpadeine. Which just about works but it wears off after a couple of hours.

My DD had dry socket. She was in agony for a long time with it. Apparently you shouldn’t drink through a straw with it, something to do with sucking the clot off I think.

Dry socket is supposed to be agony but even after 24 hours of treatment, I can't imagine there would be improvement yet. Probably takes a couple of days

It was agony, had to have mine packed due to dry socket but after that within 2 days it settled down. Within a month the hole healed