Saturday, August 11, 2012

Gum Graft Update

Well so far so good on the graft. And it wasn't exactly cheap either. Insurance will cover a very small part.

Here's what happened to me:
A free gingival graft is a dental procedure where a small layer of tissue is removed from the palate of the patient's mouth and then relocated to the site of gum recession. It is sutured (stitched) into place and will serve to protect the exposed root as living tissue. The donor site will heal over a period of time without damage. This procedure is often used to increase the thickness of very thin gum tissue.

I was told there might be swelling and bruising. I haven't had either. I figure that's not going to happen. A couple of times I was spitting out rather a lot of blood but that's stopped too. Not a great deal of pain but I am taking my pain medication regularly.

There are only two real problems. The pain medication is take every 6 hours. That makes it hard to get in a last does before you go to bed. I like to take it about an hour or so before I eat so eating won't make it flair up. The other problem is trying to chew my food on one side of my mouth. It is not that easy to do. Also eating takes a long time. Everything has to be in very very small bites. It took my half an hour yesterday to eat a muffin.

Below are some of the after surgery instructions I received.

Next week I go and get the putty they used to cover my wounds out. The week after to get the stitches out.



No comments: