What will happen if you smoke after having a tooth extracted

When teeth become diseased, many people will choose to extract the diseased teeth. Tooth extraction is now a very common thing. Although tooth extraction is a very simple dental operation, there are many things to pay attention to during and after tooth extraction. One of the things is not to smoke soon after tooth extraction. For many smokers, not smoking is a difficult thing, but smoking after tooth extraction has many harmful effects on your health.

1. Smoking can cause wound infection

If you ignore your doctor's advice and continue to smoke during the period of wisdom tooth removal, there is a high possibility that the inside of your mouth will become seriously infected. When the area where the tooth was extracted becomes infected, it will secrete a thick white or yellow liquid, and the patient will also have a high fever and symptoms such as swelling and pain in the mouth.

2. Smoking hinders wound healing

When wisdom teeth are removed, a wound will be left where they originally grew. If you continue to smoke at this time, it will significantly slow down the healing of the wound and increase the risk of infection.

3. Smoking can aggravate the pain in the alveolar region

Compared with non-smokers, smokers who smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day tend to suffer more pain after wisdom teeth extraction. The wound of the alveolar socket needs sufficient blood to heal, but smokers often cannot supply enough blood for wound healing. Wounds that do not heal for a long time will of course cause great pain and discomfort to people.

4. Smoking can cause secondary bleeding of wounds

Generally, within about 30 minutes after wisdom tooth removal surgery, the doctor will place gauze on the wound and ask the patient to bite it until the wound stops bleeding and blood clots are formed. At this time, the doctor will advise the patient to take all preventive measures to prevent further bleeding, such as not rinsing the mouth too hard, not using a straw, not brushing the teeth too hard, etc. In addition, you should not smoke, because smoking will cause blood clots to dissolve, causing the wound to bleed again.

5. Smoking increases the risk of osteomyelitis and pericoronitis

People who are addicted to smoking may find it difficult to quit smoking before and after surgery, so let us understand the serious consequences of smoking. As mentioned above, smoking dissolves blood clots, causing blood to continue to flow out of the wound area and prevent it from healing. In addition, oral experts have found through experimental studies and clinical cases that smoking increases the risk of periodontal infection in patients undergoing wisdom tooth removal surgery, and may even cause bone infection, ultimately leading to osteomyelitis.

6. It is best not to smoke before removing wisdom teeth

Now we all know that we need to give wounds time to heal after surgery and we cannot smoke immediately. So, is smoking before surgery also not conducive to the patient's recovery? Through data statistics, the researchers found that compared with non-smokers, smokers who smoke half a pack of cigarettes a day have a 12% chance of suffering from alveolar osteitis; those who smoke a whole pack of cigarettes a day have a 20% chance of suffering from the disease; if they smoke on the day of surgery, this number increases to 40%. It can be seen that smoking is harmful to the patient's health whether before or after surgery; therefore, it is recommended that all smoking friends must pay more attention during this special period to prevent the condition from worsening.