How To Care For Yourself After Having Dental Implants Put In

12 March 2017
 Categories: Dentist, Blog

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In order to ensure that you will have the easiest time caring for your oral health after having implants put in, you'll want to follow your doctor's orders and the following tips. The more you know, the less likely it is that you will face trouble such as infections or unnecessary pain.

Wait To Eat And Drink

It is important to make sure that you are not eating or drinking anything right after the procedure because your mouth will still be very numb from the local anesthetic. Eating while your mouth is still numb could cause you to accidentally bite your tongue or the inside of your cheek, which could then become infected. You could also accidentally burn yourself if you were to eat or drink anything that is too hot for your mouth. Once the feeling within your mouth has fully returned, then you can resume eating and drinking.

Use Ice Packs For The Swelling

It is not uncommon to notice that your mouth will continue to swell after the dental implants procedure. This should continue for no more than two or three days. Should you find that the swelling continues to get worse past the third day after to dental implant procedure, you will want to immediately contact your dentist to make sure that there is no problem. During the first few days after receiving the implants, you can use ice packs to help reduce the swelling as much as you can and to also reduce some of the pain that you will be dealing with.

Use Gauze For The Bleeding

You may find that you will experience a little bit of bleeding after you are home from the dentist's office. It should only be a little bit that you can maintain by biting down on some clean gauze. Make sure that you are replacing the gauze as the one you are using becomes soaked with blood. If you do not see that the bleeding is slowing down, you will need to contact your dentist right away.

Keep The New Implants Clean

Once the healing process is finished, you will brush and floss all of your teeth as normal. However, during the first week, you will want to use a mouthwash meant for use after procedures such as dental implantation. Your dentist may provide you with this or tell you where to get it. This will ensure that the dental implant area is kept clean and free from infection.

With these things in mind, it is going to be a lot easier for you to care for yourself properly after you have your dental implants put in.