Dental Care Instructions
Caring for New Composite Fillings and Porcelain Restorations
- You should be able to brush and floss your new restorations in a normal manner. Use a soft tooth brush with toothpaste regardless of the type of restoration.
- Your new restorations should not limit your enjoyment of eating a variety of food without worrying about consequences of your teeth. However, this does not mean you should ignore certain common sense suggestions of safe eating. Scraping meat off a bone when eating ribs or biting raw carrots may not be particularly prudent if your front teeth have been restored. Heavily pigmented foods such as berries have propensity to stain teeth. Avoidance or eating these types of food in moderation may prevent restorations from losing their color.
- Biting of fingernails, pencils, etc all of which can damage or dislodge restorations. Trying to open various types of containers, envelopes, etc. with teeth can also lead to loss of restorations.
- With smoking there is no doubt that it is highly deleterious to both teeth and restorations. Even though smoking's role in shortening the life of restorations is unclear, it certainly contributes to a significant amount of stain accumulation.
- Sensitivity is common following permanent restorations; it will usually decrease after two weeks. If the sensitivity persists, please contact our office.
- Temporary Crowns and Bridges are used to protect the teeth and provide a satisfactory appearance while the permanent restoration is being fabricated. These temporary restoration are usually made of acrylic resin and are not as strong as the final porcelain restoration and are attached to the teeth with a relatively weak cement to facilitate their removal at your final cementation appointment. Therefore, it is important to minimize the chewing pressure on these restorations since they can be easily fractured and dislodged. If this occurs, please contact our office for a repair or recementation.
Post-op Care for Extractions
It's important that a blood clot form on the extraction site to stop bleeding, reduce pain, and speed healing. To protect the clot and avoid the pain of a dry socket:
- bite on a gauze pad firmly for 45-60 minutes. If bleeding continues bite down on a clean pad or moist tea bag for 45-60 minutes
- don't spit; suck on candies or through a straw
- don't smoke or use tobacco for at least 72 hours because it slows healing
- limit yourself to calm activities and elevate head with pillows when you lie down to reduce bleeding
- don't drink hot or alcoholic drinks and avoid hot or spicy foods
To control discomfort take pain medication before the anesthetic has worn off.
To keep swelling to a minimum use an ice pack over the area, 20 minutes on and 20 minutes off.
When the anesthetic has worn off drink lots of fluids and eat only soft nutritious foods, chewing on the opposite side.
Dry socket is an infection in your tooth socket after a tooth is extracted. The condition usually develops when a blood clot fails to form in the socket, or comes loose. Dry socket usually occurs three to five days after the extraction and manifests itself as severe pain that doesn't subside, often accompanied by what feels like an earache. You may also have bad breathe and an unpleasant taste in your mouth. If you experience these symptoms please contact our office for further treatment. Treatment of a dry socket includes a gentle rinse and then packing of a topical anesthetic to promote healing.
Immediate Dentures Post-Operative Care
- DO NOT remove denture for 24 hours after extraction
- Avoid smoking, sucking through a straw, spitting, heavy lifting and strenuous exercise for 48 hours
- Rinse gentle with warm salt water, 3-4 times a days for two days, starting the day after extractions
- Take prescribed medication as instructed
- After the first 24 hours, remove denture at night. When not wearing denture, always keep them contained in water, and brush denture every day to keep clean
- Several adjustments on your denture will be required as your bone is healing
