Nightmare...Pain? Numbness?

[comiceye]

Hello!
I’m here looking for help/ advice about my past and present situation.

On the 9th of May (6 days ago) I had my lower left wisdom tooth extracted. I had local anesthetic applied, yet the pain was absolutely awful! I have never had any issues at the dentist, although I’ve had plenty of procedures, I’ve never physically started shaking, sweating and almost pass out from the pain..so it came to me as quite the surprise. The reason I think it hurt so bad is that it took more than an hour and my tooth had a hook like appearance (and also the assistant was quite aggressive, my mouth is tiny and he tried his best to widen it, basically rupturing open the side of my mouth.) They stitched me up and told me to come back in 10 days to remove the stitches. They also advised me not to drink anything hot, not to drink from a straw and not consume any dairy products either.

The next few days (days 1,2,3) were great, I had minimum swelling, the bleeding stopped after day 1 completely and I was prescribed to take antibiotics and ibuprofen. I felt little to no pain at all up until day 4.

Day 4 comes along and I start feeling sharp pain that is consistent, pretty high on a 1-10 scale (6-7) but not as painful as people describe dry socket. It’s more on my cheekbone area at the moment. It is now day 6 and the pain is still consistent. I don’t see any “blood clot” but I’m not sure what I’m looking for, most of the sites about information on these issues are either blocked in my country or strange natural remedies that don’t really have anything to do with my situation anyway.

*** I also can not feel my lower left lip and chin, and the numbness is becoming tender and sore as well?? I thought it was the anesthetic initially but I’m pretty sure it’s nerve damage at this point...
I’ve posted images of my extraction site below, I hope someone here will be able to tell wether I may have an infected area, dry socket or (hopefully) am healing correctly.

Thanks in advance!!

 

[honestdoc]

Can you feel your lower left lip at all. Do you still feel "tingly" on the lips? If your lip is partially numb while still have some sensation, your nerve should recover. If you feel the lip is totally numb, return to the surgeon for a full evaluation. You may be experiencing a milder form of dry socket that hopefully should resolve on its own as long as you are not experiencing swelling.

 

[comiceye]

Can you feel your lower left lip at all. Do you still feel "tingly" on the lips? If your lip is partially numb while still have some sensation, your nerve should recover. If you feel the lip is totally numb, return to the surgeon for a full evaluation. You may be experiencing a milder form of dry socket that hopefully should resolve on its own as long as you are not experiencing swelling.

I can’t feel half of my lower left lip and neither half of my chin, to the extent that if something touches that region I couldn’t tell if I had my eyes closed. There isn’t really any tingly sensation although in the first few days I would feel as if the numb part was itchy and of course, I couldn’t feel the scratch.

 

[honestdoc]

Have your surgeon evaluate you for possible nerve damage as soon as possible.

 

[comiceye]

Have your surgeon evaluate you for possible nerve damage as soon as possible.

Oof.... doesn’t sound good. I have an appointment to remove my stitches tomorrow and I’ll update this thread to see what my surgeon says as well. Thank you for the feedback!

 

[comiceye]

UPDATE:
I went back to my surgeon, she told me everything was looking good, (no sign of dry socket).
About the numbness she told me that it’ll take months to regain feeling in my lower left lip only because my wisdom tooth was positioned in a very complicated manner, so not damaging the nerve was unlikely.
Fortunately she said that I’ll gradually regain feeling in my lip/chin and that the damage is not permanent.

 

[honestdoc]

Where are you located? We take nerve damage seriously in the Pacific NW. You said your lip feels totally numb. If it feels partially numb, then I would understand. Also, if you feel totally numb, you shouldn't feel extreme pain in the extraction site. I must be missing something.

 

[MattKW]

• That's a strong statement from a surgeon; no-one can be that confident at this stage.
• I would expect that if after 2 weeks you still have full anaesthesia (i.e. no improvement), then the surgeon should start evaluating your numbness as per this excellent article. Print it out and make a time to see the surgeon with this as a discussion paper; it'll at least make them take proper notice of you.
• Full numbness may indicate that the nerve has been severed, and surgical repair is suggested by some as required within 3 months.

 

[comiceye]

Where are you located? We take nerve damage seriously in the Pacific NW. You said your lip feels totally numb. If it feels partially numb, then I would understand. Also, if you feel totally numb, you shouldn't feel extreme pain in the extraction site. I must be missing something.

I might’ve not described what I feel correctly; Half of my lip and chin feels totally numb (the left side, the side of my extraction) I’ve also discovered that my gums and teeth (from my central incisor to my premolar) are also numb. My tongue, molars and extraction site do not feel numb.
To describe this numbness, I do not feel cold things such as ice on my lip, nor would I realise if I had my eyes closed if something was touching any part of that numb area.
When I firmly press on my numb area (lip and chin), paradoxically, I feel a dull soreness(???). I am located in Europe.

 

[comiceye]

• That's a strong statement from a surgeon; no-one can be that confident at this stage.
• I would expect that if after 2 weeks you still have full anaesthesia (i.e. no improvement), then the surgeon should start evaluating your numbness as per this excellent article. Print it out and make a time to see the surgeon with this as a discussion paper; it'll at least make them take proper notice of you.
• Full numbness may indicate that the nerve has been severed, and surgical repair is suggested by some as required within 3 months.

I might go to another surgeon since I feel as if this current surgeon isn’t handling this issue properly. She did not mention any check-ups after she took out my stitches and I don’t really want to go back there anyways.

Thank you for the article, I will read it, since I live in a country where english isn’t the first language I couldn’t show it to the surgeon, but I can very well educate myself and discuss further on with a different surgeon and see what has to be done.

Can complications appear if I leave the numbness untreated? As bad as it sounds since I’m a 22 y/o female student, I much prefer living with (metaphorically speaking) half a lip than paying God knows how much for surgery.
Thanks!

 

[honestdoc]

You may be permanently numb without treatment. Since you are young, you have potential for healing. You need to have surgeon evaluate you for nerve repair surgery.