Once you’ve gotten dental implants, you’ll likely want to use them right away. That said, don’t forget that you need to recover from the placement surgery first. You’ll suffer from dental implant failure if your mouth doesn’t heal from care, leading to costly follow-up work. Thankfully, your Kent dentist has a few tips and tricks to help with your recovery. Read on, then, to learn four crucial things you should avoid after dental implant surgery.
Excessive Rinsing
It’s common for the implant site to feel “off” while you recover from surgery. Even so, please don’t do many oral rinses for a while.
You see, excessive rinsing isn’t good for your still-healing mouth. It could easily disturb the implant site and cause bleeding, putting your treatment results at risk. For that reason, don’t rinse vigorously for the first two days after your surgery. Once that time is up, you can swish with mouthwash gently, but let it flow out of your mouth over the sink.
Drinking with a Straw
You’ll need to hydrate after dental implant surgery, but don’t use drinking straws with your beverages. These tools don’t mesh well with freshly-placed implants.
The main issue is that drinking straws create suction forces. Oftentimes, such forces could dislodge the blood clot forming over the implant site. That effect would lead to a painful dry socket that threatens your dental implant, so you shouldn’t use drinking straws while you heal.
Smoking or Drinking
Many patients like to “take the edge off” after surgery by smoking or drinking. However, you’ll need to avoid these habits while you heal; they’ll disrupt your recovery.
Unfortunately, tobacco and alcohol are both harmful right after implant surgery. Smoking a cigarette (for instance) would keep your mouth from healing and likely cause implant failure. On the other hand, having an alcoholic drink would delay recovery or even prevent implant fusion.
Intense Exercise
Intense exercise is usually good for you, but that’s not the case right after a dental implant surgery. This activity would probably make your new teeth fail.
Keep in mind that intense physical activity increases blood flow. Right after your dental implant surgery, that increased flow would cause bleeding and keep you from healing. So, please avoid strenuous exercise for at least 2-3 days after your surgery.
Avoiding the things above will help your dental implants work over time. Having said that, consult your dental provider if you’d like more recovery tips.
About the Practice
Complete Dental Care is based in Kent, WA. Led by our talented dentists, our practice strives to give every patient the best dentistry possible. That’s why we offer preventive, cosmetic, and restorative treatments and quality emergency dental care. Patients can even count on our team for excellent dental implant surgery! For more details or to book a visit, please reach us on our website or by phone at (253)-854-2714.