EDIT; I can’t reply to everyone individually but thanks for all the suggestions! Opiates are out of the question, doctors here will only prescribe those in terms of absolutely extreme suffering or end of life care. I also don’t particularly feel interested in developing a hard drug habit. Diclofenac and such are available but also only on separate prescriptions, I’d have to visit another doctor for that. I’m well stocked on paracetamol & ibuprofen, and apart from that, lots of ice cream, pudding & soup :)
Also, since a fair few people seem to doubt the veracity of my story, here’s the 22 extracted teeth (the other 10 were already gone in previous extractions).
Weed and ibuprofen is how I got through my tooth extraction. Mind you, it wasn’t as severe as yours. But I took a large enough (but still reasonable) dose that I kinda just conked out after
You probably know this and we’re referring to gummies or something, but it needs to be said that smoking is not advised after a tooth extraction or pretty much any dental work. Not a great idea before hand either as the weed (in any form) can make the drugs that the dentist gives you less effective and coming down from a large dose of those can be a worse pain than the stitches in your mouth.
If you can’t get pain meds I’d try Kratom.
Start with a low dose and work your way up. If you take too much you will puke which would be awful in your current condition.
Take the right dose and it will significantly relieve the pain. I slowly took increased doses until they started to make me feel a little woozy or get cold sweats. Then I knew my personal dose is a little less than that.
I can’t stress enough though - take less at first and try a little more each time.
Either eat food with it every time or take on an empty stomach every time, but don’t go back and forth unless you know your proper personal dose with and without food. It matters a lot with Kratom.
All that said, do it right and it will bring more relief than anything else I’ve been able to legally acquire. Absolutely do not allow yourself to take it every day once the pain is manageable. Plenty of people do… But don’t do that.
Good luck. No matter what - this is only temporary. You will get through it.
Also, CBD.
My mom has chronic pain from disabilities and started taking Kratom a few years back. I tried it first to test things out before she started. We misread the instructions, and steeped about 10x more than we should have in orange juice for several hours.
I have never been so sick. OMG. It was 3 days of pure hell.
But here’s the kicker, doing that with any other medication would’ve killed me. This just made me sick. It’s a weird way to begin saying you swear by something, but I swear by the stuff. It is genuinely helpful, and it has an upper limit, so it’s risk for abuse is low. Stuff is great.
I also realize that taking so often or much of some medicaments could harm your liver.
So I would recommend to see if you can reduce the dosage after week or so when the pain finally reduces a bit.
I am also unsure how much liver damage you can get, maybe I am just paranoid and its not that severe.
Diclofenac was my aid to sleep with a broken arm
I had 8 teeth pulled at once, many years ago. I couldn’t take Tylenol 3s as they made me sick. I did my best with ibuprofen and acetaminophen (one Motrin, one Tylenol extra strength). My father kept me distracted as much as possible. His advice was to keep your mind distracted as it can help with the pain.
Yeah this is a good option - too much ibuprofen is harmful, as is too much acetaminophen. But you can take both together and get double the pain relief.
NO DO NOT TAKE THEM TOGETHER.
You need to alternate them. Taking them together creates negatively synergistic effects which ruins your health.
FOR ANYONE READING DO NOT MIX IBUPROFEN AND ACETAMINOPHEN
As I said lower down, you can take ibuprofen and acetaminophen (paracetamol) together . It’s advised you wait an hour after you take one type before you take the other to see if the first medication works well enough. There are even medications sold as a combination of both. What detrimental “synergistic effects” are you talking about?
that’s SO wrong… in australia our doctors and surgeons FREQEUENTLY tell us to take both ibuprofen and paracetamol (which is what most of the world calls acetaminophen) together
perhaps you’re thinking of taking <brand name> and <other brand name or generic form of>
ie do not take tylenol and paracetamol/acetaminophen, since they’re the same and you’re double dosing
to add:
too much paracetamol/acetaminophen causes liver damage
too much ibuprofen effects your stomach, intestines, and kidneys
their overdose effects are different
I had 6 teeth removed at once. I can remember the pain. I found crushed or blended ice was helpful and doesn’t have risk of getting stuck.
It will be okay. Setting your expectations will help mentally. It’s still really rough. Did they prescribe you anything in terms of pain management?
OTC: Tylenol didn’t touch the pain. Ibuprofen helped some but was still pretty mild.
fyi tylenol is a brand name drug of paracetamol (or in the US i believe acetaminophen)
i believe it and ibuprofen relieve different causes of pain, and in australia we’re advised that both paracetamol/acetaminophen and ibuprofen work well in conjunction
… also ibuprofen and caffeine are acrually a great combo for pain relief! so much so they they sell the combination as a product
I have no useful advice but much sympathy.
I recently had to deal with a very painful tooth surgery. Unsafe amounts of combined paracetamol, ibuprofen and more did not help. It hurt enough that I considered grabbing pliers and pulling my teeth out.
Eventually I was given opioid medication. I did not remember much of my time on it, but that’s better than the pain
most people dont develop an addiction to opiods when taken as directed by your doctor.
speaking of, go to urgent care or your PCP if they can fit you in for a perception. a dentist is going to be worthless for anything other than the mouth bones.
Weeelllll….
At the end of your bottle, if you’re taking them as prescribed, which is usually every 4-6hrs? Do that for a week and your body would be addicted. A full bottle + a refill, even two? It’s not about taking them recreationally. Your body and brain get addicted when they’re in your system regularly. I would know, got hit by a car, I think I only had one refill, and I was going through withdrawals at the end. I wasn’t even taking them as often as prescribed, mostly “as needed.” That was still regular enough.
Alternating the paracetamol and ibuprofen on a schedule is the best recommendation I can give. Severe pain, especially post-operative pain, is best managed by taking the pain meds before the pain sets in. The ibuprofen is also an NSAID and the swelling and inflammation are big contributors to pain.
The schedule that I always recommend is:
- 0800: 650-1000mg paracetamol (acetaminophen)
- 1200: 600-800mg ibuprofen
- 1600: 650-1000mg paracetamol (acetaminophen)
- 2000: 600-800mg ibuprofen
- (and in the first day or two after surgery, set alarms to wake up and take pain meds at 0000 and 0400 on the same pattern if the pain is really bad.)
This pattern keeps you covered on pain control, and you can shorten the intervals to every 3 hours if this isn’t enough without exceeding daily dose limits on either medication. If you are an American reading this and you’re also taking something like Norco, make sure to account for the acetaminophen/tylenol/paracetamol that’s in those because exceeding the recommended dose on that one is bad news for your liver.
Like some other folks have said, warm saline (salt water) rinses and soft or liquid foods are going to help as well.
to add to this, i’ve been told by doctors in the past that caffeine helps the effectiveness of ibuprofen - i’d guess though same usual rules with caffeine as always; it’ll keep you awake, so don’t take it too late
i’m no doctor though - just my memory of what doctors and nurses here in australia have said
Yeah, caffeine is a good vasoconstrictor, so it can help with headaches that are not from something like high blood pressure. Paracetamol/acetaminophen is really good for headaches on its own because it gets into the brain better.
ooooh that makes a whole lot of sense! thanks!
Wash your mouth out with salt water, worked a treat when had my wisdom teeth removed.
Just avoid vigorous rinsing, because you don’t want to dislodge the blood clots
Flanders, Belgium
Y’all got any more of them poppies?
Cocaine. Seriously.
Holy shit… When I got my wisdom teeth out, I literally broke down in tears after being awake for 20 minutes without Percocet
Friend, it’s ok to take opiates sometimes…
Kratom could be an option. You make it into tea, the first cup is a weak stimulant, the second (on an empty stomach) will start to work as a weak opiate. The third or fourth might give you stronger relief. The red strains are supposedly better for pain relief
You can’t OD on it, it’s commonly available in head shops or online. The addiction potential is very low, you’ll make yourself nauseous before getting what you’d get out of normal opiates. It’s most closely related to the coffee plant - the toxicity concerns are all about contamination, the plant itself is pretty innocuous
I can give brewing instructions if anyone wants to go down that path, I drink it for anxiety but others say it helps with pain management
Did you and your doctor not have this conversation!?
Or are you more inclined to listen to the internet over the person who’s job it is to pull all your teeth out of your head?
Answer: Oxy.
Yeah first thing I thought, too. “Have you tried asking somebody who does this professionally? Like, oh I don’t know, THE SURGEON?!”
It was probably Aspen Dental.
Your comment made my teeth hurt. IYKYK.
Entirely this. Where is your health care provider in this conversation???
You should have been sent home with antibiotics, pain killers, and a ream of after care instructions.
