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votes
Post-tooth extraction diets!
I've only had one cavity in my life and that molar was removed today. I've got about 2-3 weeks of a super soft / liquid diet ahead of me, but I'm running low on ideas.
Tuesday was day one and I had:
Breakfast:
- yogurt + honey
- a protein shake
Dinner:
- more goddamn yogurt
- pho broth
- another protein shake
- bowl of ice cream (very rare)
Breakfasts will stay the same, but I will be adding in slamming a raw egg like tough guys did in the 80s.
Today (Wednesday) is likely to be a cooled butternut squash soup and whatever else I can think of.
Anybody go through this and have any good suggestions? I'm a good cook and I can buy anything else and I'm not in any pain, so nothing is off the table so long as it fits the soft/liquid format.
Assuming it's not a first molar (or if it is and they sewed it up)... Just get through a handful of days until you're out of the woods with the clot. Then get some irrigation syringes, if they didn't give you any, to clear out anything that gets stuck.
Sounds like you're over yogurt but frozen fruit + yogurt shakes got me through. Much better than just yogurt alone, you can get the texture pretty close to a milkshake. Raw egg or two for protein. Bonus points if you can find yogurt with a decent amount of protein per serving (greek, some brands of regular that have a lower water ratio).
After you graduate from yogurt, there's real food that doesn't require much chewing (refried beans, dal, mulligatawny, soup). I didn't have any issues with warm food, but I suppose YMMV.
After the first week I was eating normal food slowly, chewing on one side. It's amazing how much less satisfying that is.
dal totally slipped my mind! that's an especially good one. Curries -- especially aloos etc -- will be great. Good call on that. Refried beans is also great. I'm not sure if I can do mulligatawny right away since they said to stay away from small foods -- but If you have a good recipe for that, I'll put it in the queue for when I'm out of this relatively mild hellscape.
This is a second molar on the lower left (#18?) -- I miss it. I'm getting an implant ASAP, but I want that soup right away with a good crusty bread... this is the first food I've lusted after so far. haha
Re: mulligatawny, just blend the hell out of it. It's not as good that way but it's something. I use an immersion blender. Here's the recipe I have bookmarked but I just use it for a rough idea of ratios when I haven't made it in a while.
Mine was second molar on the lower right, if yours goes the same way mine did you'll be eating normal food and musing about how long 4 weeks actually is in no time.
thanks for the recipe! I'm definitely gonna do this in a week or two when I'm on normal stuff.
I hope it goes fast. I'm starting day three and it feels like it'll be an eternity, but I'll be on french omelettes soon, so that it'll be a really nice. It's kind of good that I'm on the liquid diet in a way. I loaded up on soup from the store, which I never have. Might find something quick and good that I wouldn't normally.
I’ve had wisdom tooth removal twice and went by with yoghurt yoghurt yoghurt and then some more yoghurt. Admittedly, I was really stressed out about potential infections so it gave me more peace of mind to eat the same thing over and over for a week and worry less about potentially damaging some sore skin with too sharp food.
Good luck, I wish you a very speedy recovery!
hahahaha when I had my wisdom teeth out it took close to a year to finally heal and I pretty much lived on yogurt. I probably put on 30lbs from it.
I accept your well wishes! I was a cool customer leading up to this, but I can feel two of the sutures and am about 10% worried. I'll call them in the morning and they'll likely say its fine.
Thanks again! I'm thinking I'll do about 7L of yogurt this month.
Well...
I ate normally after having a molar removed a little while back.
Thing was, I was a little worried too, but since there is air above the extraction point I found it quite hard to actually chew food into it so it hurt.
For the first few days I had to be conscious about the teeth next to the gap touching the teeth in the opposite jaw (upper/lower) which felt weird, but didn't really hurt.
My advice would be, be a tad attentive to how you chew and you will be fine.
If you really want to be sure, any non crunchy or very chewy food should be fine. Including any pasta/rice/quinoa/tuber+sauce, loaded fries (but possibly not extra crispy fries), sandwiches without chewy meats, omelettes, salads, etc.
Disclaimer: I don't really do well when I eat things I'm not in the mood for, so adapting my meals just to avoid a little discomfort or even a little pain is not for me!
If you want I can probably come up with drinky-food ideas if you still want to. I feel I should after completely disregarding your request (although I think I answered your real question, as I interpreted it!)
I fully agree with this.
I had all four wisdom teeth removed in one morning then had a hamburger, fries, and salad for dinner. The dentist gave me a little plastic irrigation bottle to clean the holes after meals. Their only warning was to avoid truly hard foods that won't soften - like peanuts - which could lodge a chunk in the hole that irrigation would not be able to remove.
It'll be a bit trickier with a molar more upfront than a wisdom tooth, but I think as long as OP pays attention and chews on the good side, they're probably fine.
Edit: That said, I'm now remembering a friend who's face swelled up like a chimpmunk for a few days after extraction, so YMMV
After reading the other comments I realise I have a water-flosser that I used to clean out the extraction point...
Didn't think of that aspect when I wrote my comment above.
I got my wisdom tooth extracted recently, I just ate soft stuff like soups or mashed potatoes for the first 3 days, and then ate pretty much normally, just trying to mostly chew with the opposite side of my mouth.
Sorry to hear you're suffering - it's no joy being on such a restricted diet. My wisdom teeth were badly jacked up. I had to have two sets of extractions done by an oral surgeon, who basically left me with sprained temporomandibular joints each time. Chewing just wasn't possible for about a month afterward.
You'd be amazed what you can pureé in a blender with added liquid and eat with a straw. Everything from applesauce to a "steak shake" to lentil soup. The palatability trick is to avoid adding things you wouldn't ordinarily put in your mouth at the same time - keep the banana separate from the scrambled eggs, and so on. If you're really pressed for time, prepared baby food is an option.
steak shake! hahahaha -- that's wild. How was it? I guess it'd be like a... cooked tartare... I dont think I'll be heading down that path (at least not right away.)
I had my wisdom teeth out at 27 and all four were impacted and one was almost touching the roots of the tooth I just had extracted. I get that they're an evolutionary thing leftover... but jesus christ, its been tens of thousands of years -- hurry up :)
Thats fucked about the sprained TMJ. I can't even imagine. Here I am whining because the ice pack is cold.
"Steak shake" really was exactly like a loose, cooked tartare, only less chewy. The biggest problem with a liquid diet is that you don't have as much opportunity to really taste what you're eating since the liquid saturates your taste buds faster. I learned to drink more slowly and sip water between slugs of pureéd foods just to sense the tastes better. Deprivation of varied textures also seems to signal your body that you're not getting enough nourishment.
To be fair, my wisdom teeth came in sideways and were already causing TMJ problems (evolution doesn't care about suffering, just reproduction). However, my oral surgeon went to the Little Shop of Horrors School of Pain Management and I'm dentist-phobic from his work to this day. The upside is that I take very, very meticulous care of my teeth.
haha your little shop of horrors doc sounds rough. I don't blame you for being an antidentite. I had four impacted and should have had those out a decade earlier, but I had a terrible dentist growing up. He was more interested in local theatre than anything.
I didnt go to the dentist for about five years after that. Its crazy, but I bought a pick thing and got a hygienist friend to teach me the right way to do a good job. When I went in for that first cleaning they said i was doing a pretty good job, so there's that. I've been going for regular appointments ever since, though. I still don't really like it. Also, when the fuck did we stop getting toys‽ Oh, just because I'm in my mid 40s doesn't mean I shouldn't get a goddamn bouncy ball. Keep your toothpaste, doc.
Have you ever had any trigeminal neuralgia? I rarely get it, but there are people who have that all the time and I just don't know how they manage. Whenever I get to whining about anything medical, I think on those poor folks. That is by far the worst pain I've ever experienced.
That evil bastard consistently hit nerves with the Novocaine needle, then cut my gums and started to chisel out my wisdom teeth without waiting for the local to work, among other charming practices. I can still spike a stroke-quality blood pressure at the sound of a dentist's drill.
I happened to live near a university with a highly regarded dental school, and was seen by a professor who specialized in phobic patients. Fantastic to work with, took time to explain everything, used low-vibration instruments, and believed in premedication with beta blockers. After I moved away, it was years before I found a dentist I trusted again. And yes, I scale my own teeth regularly as well.
I'm sorry you've had to deal with trigeminal neuralgia - it's a universe of suck which I wouldn't wish on anyone.
These days, I've got rheumatoid arthritis and it includes the TMJs. The last bad flare, I had enough inflammation around the jaw hinge that it affected the trigeminal nerves. That was a visit to some dark places - no sleep for a week, could barely open my mouth or chew without excruciating pain until the prednisone prescription kicked in. I didn't bother with a liquid diet other than the odd can of protein drink - I just didn't want to eat anything at all.
every healthcare professional should have to have their marks on the wall or something. Crazy to get to work before its all kicked in. My sister is a ginger so she has to have more freezing than most -- and she only JUST found this out a decade ago after a life of terrible dental experiences.
oh man! okay yeah -- TN is nuts, right? The first time it flared up was from eating. So crazy. I can take a lot of pain, but that was a whole other category of suffering I wasn't aware of. The second time I was at a restaurant and I had some soup and 'tick', but it went away after a few minutes. The gal I was with said I was giving looks like Teen Wolf in the mirror. haha
I always want to be knocked out with whatever the fuck that IV was. That was glorious. I had a few weeks where I didn't feel rested at all... but since that black out... I haven't felt so rested in a long time.
I survived mostly on mashed potatoes and gravy (homemade using grass-fed beef bone broth) after my wisdom teeth extraction years ago. Could also be sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes. Hummus and baba ganoush are good options too.
Good luck, wish you well with recovery!
good call with the bone broth! The main thing I worry about with a liquid / soft diet is getting the proper nutrients --- but it appears I have little to worry about.
hummus with channa dal is great since there aren't any skins and you dont have to mess with bicarb. Baba ghanoush is a killer suggestion, too.
Thanks for the well wishes and great ideas
+1 for hummus
I've never prescribed myself to any specific diet, I've just tried to abstain from sucking on anything. ie: cigarettes, straws, etc.
Despite my best efforts I've never managed to abide by my own rules and every time I ended up smoking tobacco and usually cannabis.
I've never had a dry socket, despite flaunting doctor's orders repeatedly. Your mileage may vary.
If I was to recommend some food that wouldn't interfere with your tooth sockets I guess soups are really good on day one. Squash is out of season but I remember doing a really nice one with a butternut squash, chicken broth, onions, and carrots, blended in a magic bullet. Add a pinch of cayenne pepper and a half a pinch of nutmeg... I could life off that for weeks.
you're very lucky. I should follow your lotto picks :)
I'm going to be doing a lot of butternut squash soup. I think its the best overall soup going. I've got a big-ass food processor (1.5hp!) that I never use, so that'll get some love. I'm gonna use thirteen spice in it, which I only recently discovered.
About a year and a half ago, I developed an esophagus problem that makes solid food very tricky to eat (my esophagus can't push it down very well, so it tends to get stuck inside my stomach and never entersmy intestines). If I eat something gummy like rice, pasta, or bread, I have to go on a liquid diet for about two days after, because everything else I try to eat gets stuck behind the solid mass inside my stomach and can't pass through (causing nausea, acid reflux, pain on the left side of my ribcage, and constant burping because everything just ferments directly inside my stomach instead of my intestines). So I've been living on a mostly liquid diet ever since.
To make things even more challenging, I'm lactose intolerant, so eating yogurt, ice cream, milkshakes, etc., just complicates my symptoms.
Fortunately, there's a humongous world of soup and soup-related meals out there! At first, I was following recipes (egg drop soup, red lentil curry, etc., etc.), but I've made enough soups now that I'm pretty comfortable winging my own recipes and getting different texture and flavor profiles depending on what I'm in the mood for. Soup is basically the perfect food: the variety is endless, it's generally very quick and easy to make, and you can adjust it to the ingredients you have on hand.
I'm also lactose intolerant. I've got a good lactose free (lie) yogurt -- it just has the enzyme, but its good. I had three lactaid-like capsules to approach that ice cream last night.
That... all kind of sucks. I hope it figures itself out. If you have recipes all typed up, send 'em over :)
I had my wisdom teeth removed by an oral surgeon a couple of years ago, because they were only partially erupted and crowded in a difficult orientation.
I'd mix up a bowl of instant mashed potatoes and drink an Ensure shake, for something like a week or two. The key is you want meal replacement shakes (intended for a non-solid diet) and not the more widely available protein shakes (athletics/fitness), because they have a wider spectrum of required nutrients.
hahaha at first I read that as if you were mixing Ensure and the mashed potatoes and I was prepared to never eat again.
Good call with the Ensure, though. Which flavor did you like the most?
Yeah...don't do that lol. That sounds nasty.
I think I ended up with a pack of the chocolate ones, but I don't fully recall.
haha I did a vanilla calorie one tonight and it tastes like a bottle of melted ice cream. I can't have certain food coloring and the others all had it, but sneakily (Erythrosine for Red #3.)
Not a tooth removal, but I had a double gum transplant last year with similar restrictions and I found I really loved rice pudding and congee/jook/okayu/lugaw. Fairly nutritious, delicious, hard to get tired of and I still like both of them even after eating them for several weeks straight!
A couple years back I had all 4 wisdom teeth removed. I went back to solid food on day 2. So here's the thought that I had and ran with--if the only thing I'm doing is taking food into the center of my mouth and swallowing then what is the difference if it's solid or mushy? So I just got my regular solid food, made the amount smaller, cut each piece up small so I didn't have to do any mechanical chewing, let it sit in my mouth a bit to soften it up and get some flavors, and then swallow like normal. Worked a treat and I got my full food choices back.
Probably still a bad idea but it worked for me. Don't yell at me if you get a dry socket plx :)
They told me to gently spoon milkshakes into my mouth, that the cold was good for reducing pain and inflammation, and the milk would help with clotting.
Vegetable smoothies and broths, blended stews. I would avoid sugar either in honey or fruits as it drives inflammation.
i wish I could chew on bananas.
I don't really like fruit. I eat blueberries every day (except now), but I've probably had a dozen apples in my life. I'm more of a brussels sprouts kind of dude.
I think blended stews are going to be the way to go. I'm not going to blend animal protein no matter what happens.
With the swelling i have on the one side, I kind of look like I did before I dropped a bunch of weight over a decade ago.
First of all get well soon. Second of all, if you have a pressure cooker, welcome to the world of Cantonese broths and congee.
Congee!
Roughly, 1:10 rice to water/broth ratio, pressure cook 30min. Add more water if you feel it's too thick. Strain out water if too brothy. Use whisk to further break down if you prefer.
A lot of fish (when properly de-boned) flake quite nicely into the congee to deliver nice bits of umami. One easily obtainable favourite is ling cod. Tilapia de-boned easy and quite cheap. Goes well with a bit of white pepper and cilantro, if tolerated.
Other toppings: Plain egg swirled in deliver good nutrition. Small pieces of spinach, fine shreds of ice berg, bits of seaweed, minced + marinated meats, tiny Sakura shrimp (wiki), creamed corn, pork floss (YouTube) ... Some Asian groceries also carry vegetarian protein floss. Tofu skins, minced shiitake mushrooms. All kinds of furikake (wiki) "rice friends" work great here. In your place I would also get fresh Chinese fried donut, shredded, to keep my spirits up.
This is a Chinese language site for baby congee, but auto translate and the methods are basically the same with different topping ideas.
Century eggs, salted duck eggs, cilantro, pork liver, pork kidneys: not for everyone but quite nice if you like them.
Broths!
Basically, get a type of bone, a type of muscle, and some root veg / dried goji berries, then, pressure cook, salt to taste, and drink the collagen + protein rich broth. A whole chicken check both bone and muscle boxes: chicken necks if you're cheap like me. Broth meats are soft, and when dipped with a bit of spiced soy sauce or Maggi sauce can be eaten as well. Samples:
Coconut Chicken healing broth - I'm unfamiliar with this site but the recipe looks sound.
https://www.madewithlau.com/recipes?search=broth
Excellent bilingual site with recipes for seaweed broth, chicken broth, pumpkin broths.
This site is great too. Imitation Shark Fin Soup would be a fun addition to your diet.
Others!
I don't like mushy peas, hummus, refried beans myself but they're good nutritional candidates. =..= I find the thick texture of western soups demoralizing if eaten for days in a row.
In your place I would just eat dessert tofu (Dou Fa) all day, plain with brown sugar sprinkled on top, or paired with steamed soft sweet potato, yam, grass jelly shreds, or tiny tapioca pearls, pearl barley, peach gum, red bean, green bean, shaved ice with colourful syrups,... Look up Taiwanese dessert restaunt menus for ideas.
Get better soon :)
mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, oatmeal, eggs, loooooooots of soup basically lived on progresso chunky when I had my wisdom teeth out.
When I had my wisdom teeth removed, I thought I was so smart for planning mashed potatoes for most of my meals. I was so wrong. I never want to eat mashed potatoes again after just a few days of that being my main food.
My life saver was actually kraft mac and cheese! The noodles were soft enough and it tasted much better to me (and actually had a little texture) than mashed potatoes! Other than that, I had a ton of yogurt, pudding, and protein shakes...
oh man, yeah. I was doing strawberry yogurt every day and it took a few years before I could go back.
for your nick, Ocon?
Completely unrelated to Ocon, but I am an F1 fan (but not an Ocon fan). I since moved on to a different handle on most platforms, ha.
that dude from the Missed Apex podcast is the only Ocon fan I know of. Finding a second... well, proof we're in a simulation.
Unless this was a surgical procedure, I think you’re overthinking it. I’ve had multiple molars removed and I don’t think I’ve ever had to change meals much. The only time I remember was when the 4 wisdom teeth were surgically removed, that took a while to heal.