I had a serious car accident nov 24th 2013, i broke 2 neck vertebrae, broke 7 ribs, had a punctured lung as well as a pneumothorax, OPEN fracture of the tibia, fractured ankle, fractured fibula and ruptured spleen. six operations, lots of plastic surgery involving free flap surgery (which failed and there were even leeches used for a week to try salvage it - see this out for interest: ), followed by a distal pedicle sural flap (to fill the whole in the leg). AND THEN, after ALL this, 3 months later (still healing and still can't walk but doing much better), i started experiencing tooth ache. i had a couple root canals (non eventful) and then the pain went and then was need of an extraction (allegedly). The extraction took near on an hour and the tooth was drilled in half to get it out. Pain started 4 days post extraction, EXTREME pain, thought it was normal and rinsed mouth with salt water for that whole day and next morning. The salt water is a mistake with dry socket. Pain was EXTREME++ for half an hour post swirling round mouth. Long short, dry socket, even the dentist didn't ever mention this diagnosis. However, the dentist wanted to use some of his new equipment so instead of doing the usual for dry socket, took some of my blood and using a centrifuge, isolated the plasma, then filled the hole with this and stitched it up. Anaesthetic wore off that evening, again, PAINFUL as hell. so day 7, Face throbbing, jaw aching all over left side as if I'd been chewing for 10 hours non-stop, dull and sharp pains round gum area and adjacent teeth and pain creeping up to left ear and migraines. 1g paracetemol + 600mg ibuprofen did sweet sod all. Luckily my gf was carrying some co-codamol 500/30 (so paracetemol and codeine respectively). This really does help, thank God, but only had two pills so necked them and then had to fight through rest of night.. The dentist didn't diagnose with dry socket but filled the hole with my own blood plasma (used in dentistry for post surgery blah blah, PRP its called). This did f all. Next day called dentist, he referred me to maxillofacial surgeon (the one amazing thing he actually did do). This lady sorted it straight away. she cleaned it out (said there was no plasma left, i.e. it had just seeped out through the stitches, said she doesnt believe in that sht anyway) and cleaned the bone (man that was PAIN) and also got it to bleed again. She then packed with ALVOGYL (thank you my new best friend). PAIN, even after packed, I thought, F*, will this really work but was pleased cos she told me no fracture of jaw and really seemed to know what was up: i.e. dry socket. Ten mins later, pain GONE!!! F** I was ecstatic!!!!! SERIOUSLY. It's now been a week, there's been zero pain the WHOLE time. BUT, just this evening, some mild aching has started in the area. This just petrifies me. Scared it will come back. Just want to know, is it normal for the pain to creep back and then to go get some more alvogyl and continue in this cycle until completely healed, or what?