Can I Drink Alcohol After Tooth Extraction? How Long Should I Wait?

Everyone has their own preferred way to enjoy or have drinks, especially, when it’s summertime. It can be anything, a cold refreshing beer or a bottle of wine, anything that typically has some alcohol mixed in it.

If you haven’t forgotten your mind, your dentist might have advised you not to eat certain foods and beverages during the recovery. This advice is given to ensure the success of your tooth extraction procedure. 

Thus, the universal question after getting a tooth extraction or any oral surgery is: Can I have alcohol after the extraction? If not, then how long should I wait after tooth extraction to get back to alcohol?

We went through many articles to provide the most accurate answer to your doubts. We even discovered some small tips that can provide you with easy recovery from tooth extraction.

Excited, let’s dive right in.

What Is Tooth Extraction? When Do You Need it?

Tooth extraction is a procedure performed in order to remove one or more affected teeth from your socket. Wisdom tooth extraction is one of the most common types of tooth extraction. 

You might need a tooth extraction for several different causes:

• To remove infected or decayed teeth. 
• Injury or trauma that leads to a broken tooth that can’t be fixed.
• To create space for orthodontic surgery

Can I Drink Alcohol After Tooth Extraction?

Mayo Clinic and ADA (American Dental Association) clearly warn you not to have any alcoholic beverage till 24 hours after tooth extraction. 

Your dentist might even recommend you to stay away from alcohol for more than 24 hours looking at the complication of your tooth extraction. So looking at each piece of advice we calculated a general rule of thumb to avoid alcohol till 48 hours after tooth extraction.

It applies to every kind of oral surgery whether it be a tooth extraction, wisdom teeth removal, or fixing braces over your teeth. 

Takeaway: You can have Alcohol only after 48 hours of tooth extraction. Before this period having alcohol might worsen the case and make your recovery period painful.

Reasons Why You Should Avoid Alcohol After Tooth Extraction

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After tooth extraction, a clot develops at the site of extraction and helps you to prevent dry socket. This blood clot helps to provide a protective layer over the empty socket (or the cavity). This in turn prevents your exposed nerves along with the underlying bone. 

Drinking alcohol or any drinks in which alcohol is mixed somehow, could increase the chances of developing a dry socket.

Not just dry sockets but there are many other reasons found in studies that are sufficient to encourage you to avoid alcohol after oral surgery. 

Some of the reasons for avoiding alcohol after tooth extraction, As per the ADA guidelines and you must know are:

1. Alcohol Might Make Your Immune System Weak:

For regeneration of skin over the wound, your immune system must function at its best. However, heavy alcohol consumption has a remarkable contribution to damage your immune system and make it weak.

Thus, alcohol might delay the healing process and leave the way open for infections.

2. Alcohol Increases Bleeding Risks:

A medical professional Marie Eliasen (At National Institute of Public Health, Denmark) explains that drinking alcohol increases the risks of bleeding at the socket. 

The reason behind it was, that alcohol increases endocrine response which in turn reduces the coagulation of blood. Hence contributes to the overall delay in the healing process.

So, if you want to avoid any further complications after tooth extraction, simply say no to it until 48 hours or the time recommended by your doctor. 

Caution: One more thing you need to know is, to avoid using straws for drinks. The reason why it is said by ADA is, that drinking with straws creates a suction pressure inside your mouth. This pressure could loosen the clot formed and the healing process could be delayed.

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Consequences of Drinking Alcohol After Tooth Surgery

Now, what if you ignore the advice and start drinking alcohol without waiting for any time interval? Ever imagined, what post-complications you may face?

If you are already consuming alcohol before the wound has recovered, then there’s a high chance of facing a dry socket in your recovery period. 

Don’t know what a dry socket is? Dry Socket (the common term for Alveolar Osteitis) is a medical condition in which the clot developed at the site after permanent tooth extraction, gets dissolved before the wound has healed. And your clot fails to develop further.

Following this condition, your empty socket might get inflamed leading to pain and discomfort. Now, how can you identify that you have a dry socket? Here are signs to make dry socket identification easy for you.

Possible signs that you have a dry socket-

1. Severe pain at the site of tooth extraction.
2. Partially or even fully dislodging the clot at an empty socket.
3. Bony spicule appearance at the site which could be sensitive and painful to touch.
4. Annoying odor from your mouth.
5. Bad breath and unpleasant taste.

These symptoms of dry socket mentioned above can help you easily identify it if you already started to consume alcohol before the advised time.

If you feel you got a dry socket as a result of drinking alcohol before the recovery from surgery, then you might need to worry about the same.

If you find your socket pain getting worse day by day, you may need to visit your dentist once again.

Thus, as always prevention is better than cure. So, try to avoid alcohol for at least 48 hours from tooth extraction.

Also Read: Sharp Bone Sticking Out of My Gum

Healthy Beverage Options After Tooth Extraction

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Not having alcohol after a dental procedure might make you feel sad for a moment. But there’s nothing to get disappointed about as we have some healthy beverage alternatives to alcohol for you. And the best part, too tastes great and gives you a refreshing feel.

Here’s a list of selected healthy beverages to maintain your mouth’s taste as great as alcohol.

Side Note:- Always remember not to drink anything hot during recovery, even if it’s coffee or tea.

# Green Tea – Evidence supports the fact that green tea helps decline socket bleeding risk after tooth extraction.

# Coffee – The good news for coffee lovers is that it Is safe to have coffee after tooth extraction, the condition being, that it should be a cold coffee. 

# Water – Drink a lot of cold water after the surgery. It helps you with faster recovery and also soothes pain for some time.

# Fresh Milk – Recommended by almost every dentist, fresh milk is a rich source of calcium and it helps with keeping your teeth healthy. So, you must include it in your meal.

# Soups – Just like milk, soups too contain vitamins and minerals in good amounts. Just remember to blend it as smoothly as possible.

So, that’s all above healthy drinking habits, you can adopt to make recovery time smooth for 48 hours from tooth extraction.

If you are interested in the complete list of food items to eat, you should look at these 16 foods to eat after tooth extraction.

Along with all this, Porridge (Also Known As Khichadi In India) is considered one of the best meals to have after tooth extraction. You may even replace your meals with them as they are quite easy to swallow and don’t require much effort to chew.

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Post-Extraction Tips For Easy Recovery

In addition to avoiding alcohol after tooth extraction. Here are a few other postoperative tips that would make your recovery much easier and smooth. And also lets you ensure a complication-free recovery period.

1. Mouth Cleaning:

Cleaning your mouth right after a tooth extraction is a common problem.

Side Note: Do not clean your teeth next to the healing socket for at least 2 days.

For other teeth, you may brush them well and even floss them so that your teeth are clean. For tongue, you can use a tongue cleaner but don’t let it harm your healing socket.

Keeping your tongue clean helps you to get rid of unpleasant taste and bad breath. You must also try to keep food particles away from the site of extraction.

2. Use Ice Or Cold Compress:

After the surgery, the skin above the socket swells. It might also be painful. But, nothing to worry about, it’s normal after any tooth extraction. To reduce swelling and pain at the site, you can use an ice bag or give it a cold compress with moist clothes. 

Take your doctor’s advice for the duration you should have a cold compress. 

3. Medication: 

Use the medicines prescribed by your dentist. None other than that. Do not overdose or use any other medicine even if the prescribed medicine does not work. Call your doctor in that case.

4. Rinsing Your Mouth:

Never rinse your mouth vigorously, as this could also dislodge your blood clot. Still, rinse your mouth slowly with lukewarm saltwater. It will help you to keep food particles away from the extraction site. If you have hypertension, consult your doctor before using salt water.

5. Do Not Smoke:

Stay miles away from smoking after tooth extraction because the sucking action of your mouth while you smoke could pull off your blood clot from the cavity formed after extraction. 

Thus delaying the recovery period and making it painful. So, you must avoid smoking till the time your wound has not healed. 

That’s all for your postoperative care tips after your tooth extraction. Follow this well and you are definitely gonna recover well from tooth extraction.

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Takeaway

Having alcohol within a day of tooth extraction is definitely a bad idea. It can delay your healing, end up with a dry socket, and cause further complications. So try your best to abstain from alcohol for a minimum of 2-3 days after the oral surgery. 

The tips shared above will really help your recovery period go easy and can even reduce post-operative pain. 

Now, it’s your turn? Ever felt to have alcohol right after extraction? What did you do? We would love to listen to your experience. Do let us know through our discussion box below. 🙂

FAQ on Alcohol After Tooth Extraction

The risk of a dry socket remains as long as you are not fully healed. For your socket to get fully healed it usually takes 7-10 days in most cases.

Most dentists and trusted organizations recommend not smoking or drinking alcoholic beverages or mouthwash containing alcohol for 24 hours to 72 hours.

No, you can’t drink alcoholic, caffeinated, carbonated, or hot beverages at least for weeks or as long as your dentist suggests. It might complicate the site of tooth extraction by having a dry socket.

References

1. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dry-socket/symptoms-causes/syc-20354376?_ga=2.128168460.1431221720.1596005400-1766798241.1595747348/
2. https://www.ada.org/~/media/ADA/Publications/Files/ADA_PatientSmart_Extraction.pdf?la=en&_ga=2.158572474.1431221720.1596005400-1766798241.1595747348/
3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12812138/
4. https://www.ada.org/~/media/ADA/Publications/Files/ADA_PatientSmart_Extraction.pdf?la=en#:~:text=Avoid%20alcoholic%20beverages%20or%20mouthwash%20containing%20alcohol%20for%2024%20hours.&text=Limit%20strenuous%20activity%20for%2024,the%20blood%20clot%20to%20form.&text=Sometimes%20the%20blood%20clot%20does,breaks%20down%20for%20some%20reason.
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4911891/
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_osteitis#Extraction_site/
7. https://www.researchgate.net/institution/National-Institute-of-Public-Health-Denmark/
8. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2014/857651/