Hello, I recently had oral surgery to remove two impacted wisdom teeth on my lower side. After the surgery, I have followed all post operative conditions and made sure to avoid getting dry socket. After a day I had experienced a significant amount of swelling on my right side but it gradually decreased and was fine until tonight (4 days later). I was awoken in the middle of the night due to pain in the right side of my mouth and I found my inner cheek is now swollen on the right side. It seemed to me that everything was going fine, I am not sure what this sudden swelling means inside my mouth. The pain is so bad that I cannot sleep, especially not if I lay down on my right side. What do you think about this?
Swelling is another common problem after the extraction of wisdom tooth. Rather the painful swelling is a good sign and is indicator of normal progress of healing process of wound. There is no fixed time frame for its duration and level of severity. These can be different from person to person. To reduce the amount of swelling one can do cold fermentation with ice. It should be done for 20 minutes and then take break of 20 minutes. Do this for one hour within 12 hours of surgery. Do not do hot fermentation.  The post-operative instructions of the dentist explain all this including the start and reduction of swelling. Normally it takes 7 days for swelling to subside and if this does not happen within this expected time then one should call up the dentist to checkup. In cases where swelling once goes away and then sets in again, this can be due to infection in the wound.