Enter your surgery date and I'll show you exactly what to do each day. Stays on your phone only.
Step 1 — Pressure First
- Place fresh, damp gauze directly over the bleeding site (not stuffed into the hole).
- Bite down firmly for a full 30 minutes. No peeking, no talking, no spitting.
- Sit upright and stay calm. Some oozing mixed with saliva looks like a lot more blood than it is.
Step 2 — Black Tea Bag
- If still bleeding after 30 minutes, dampen a black tea bag (Lipton or any regular black tea).
- Place it OVER the site — not inside it — and bite down for another 30 minutes. The tannins in black tea help form a clot.
Step 3 — Pharmacy Products That Can Help
How to use it: place the packing OVER the bleeding site and bite down for 30 minutes. It turns into a soft gel and lifts off without tearing the new clot. Ask the pharmacist for "calcium alginate packing" if you can't find it. Note: QuikClot from the first-aid aisle is labeled for external wounds only — if it's truly all you can get, bite on it over the site, never pack it into the hole, and call us.
Find Help Fast
Call Dr. Foust right away at 832.600.6878 if your mouth is filling up with blood quickly when you open it, or bleeding hasn't slowed after two rounds of pressure. Call 911 only for loss of consciousness or trouble breathing.
Why This Matters
About an hour to an hour and a half after surgery, the patient takes the gauze out and sees blood on it. Every so often, that sight alone makes them go pale, dizzy, and faint — even someone who has never fainted before in their life.
Here's what's happening. The brain recognizes that this is their own blood, and it expects that to come with pain. But the mouth is still completely numb, so no pain signal arrives. That mismatch confuses the nervous system, and it overreacts: heart rate drops, blood pressure drops, and the patient passes out. It is not weakness and it is not a sign that anything went wrong with the surgery.
The clinical name for this is vasovagal syncope. It's the same reflex that makes people faint at the sight of a needle.
Warning Signs — Act Early
- Suddenly pale, gray, or washed-out looking
- Says they feel dizzy, lightheaded, hot, or "weird"
- Sweaty, clammy, or nauseated
- Glassy eyes or a blank stare
- Ringing ears or says vision is going dark or narrow
If you see any of this, get them down before they go down. Lay them flat on their back and raise their legs about a foot off the ground. Don't try to walk them to a chair or the bathroom — that's when people hit their head.
If They Do Faint
- Lay them flat and elevate the legs. Gravity does the work of getting blood back to the brain.
- Loosen anything tight at the neck. Give them air and space.
- Keep the gauze in place if it's still in, and keep the blood out of view.
- They should come around within seconds. Have them stay lying down for several minutes afterward, then sit up slowly.
- Once they're alert, get something cold and sweet into them — juice, a smoothie, ice cream.
About the "Seizure" — Read This Before It Scares You
Sometimes when a person faints, their arms or legs stiffen or jerk for a few seconds. It looks exactly like a seizure and it is genuinely frightening to watch.
It is not a real seizure. The term for it is convulsive syncope. It's just the brain briefly short on blood flow, and it stops on its own within a few seconds once the patient is lying flat and circulation returns. It does not mean they have a seizure disorder, and it does not cause any lasting harm.
Stay calm, keep them flat, clear anything hard away from them, and let it pass. Do not put anything in their mouth.
How to Prevent It Entirely
- Patient sits down before the gauze comes out — never standing, never in the car.
- Have them close their eyes. You remove the gauze and put it straight in the trash.
- If they need to spit, have them spit into a cup you take away immediately.
- Keep them fed and hydrated. An empty stomach makes fainting far more likely.
- No sudden standing up in the first few hours.
Call Dr. Foust at 832.600.6878 if the patient doesn't wake up within a minute, hits their head when falling, or you're simply not comfortable with how they look. Call 911 if they are unresponsive or having trouble breathing.
Take 1 tablet every 6 hours as needed for pain. Get something in your stomach first. The night of surgery, Dr. Foust recommends taking it together with Tylenol once you've eaten something cold and creamy.
Take 1 tablet twice a day until ALL gone — don't stop early even if you feel great.
Important: antibiotics may decrease the effectiveness of birth control pills. Use backup protection this cycle.
Allergic to penicillin? Dr. Foust prescribes a Z-Pak (azithromycin) instead. Follow the pack's day-by-day instructions until gone.
Swish 15 ml (about a tablespoon) for 30 seconds, twice a day, until the bottle is gone.
One bottle does two jobs — see "Rinsing vs. Irrigating" below.
When the bottle runs out, switch to Listerine. We don't prescribe a second bottle because a second round of chlorhexidine can start staining your teeth. Listerine takes over from there, same routine.
Dissolve 1 tablet on the tongue every 8 hours as needed for nausea. No water needed.
If nausea lasts more than 12 hours, call Dr. Foust at 832.600.6878.
This one is optional, and here's the thinking. Pain and swelling naturally peak on days 3 to 5. The steroid knocks down inflammation right when that peak hits, so those days are much more comfortable.
The pack has its own day-by-day taper printed on it — just follow it.
Heads up for the day after you finish it: many patients call saying pain "suddenly came back" the day after their last steroid dose. Nothing is wrong — the anti-inflammatory effect has simply worn off and you're feeling normal healing again. It fades over the next couple of days. Ibuprofen and Tylenol cover you through it.
1. Rinsing (starts day after surgery): swish Peridex in your mouth twice a day, then spit. That's the whole job.
2. Irrigating (starts day 4): fill a cup with water, add a splash of Peridex, draw it into the irrigation syringe, and gently flush the sockets — the syringe tip goes right to the little slits where the teeth were. Rewatch the video we made in your mouth before you left the office if you're unsure.
Same bottle for both. When it's empty, Listerine steps in for both jobs too.
Right After Surgery — Cold and Creamy Only
- Wait about an hour and a half, take the gauze out (patient seated, eyes closed), then get something cold and creamy in your stomach: ice cream, milkshake, smoothie, yogurt.
- Then take your Advil and Tylenol together — while you're still numb.
- Why cold? Two reasons. Your tongue, lip, and chin are numb — hot food can burn your mouth and you won't feel it until the numbness wears off. And heat can dislodge the fresh blood clots. Cold protects your mouth AND helps those clots get established.
- Creamy soup is fine too — but only once the numbness has worn off, and warm, not hot.
About the Numbness (and Ice)
- The upper areas wake up much faster. The lower jaw can stay numb up to 8 hours — and that's on purpose. The longer you stay numb after surgery, the less discomfort you'll have even days later. It's part of the plan, not a problem.
- Don't ice while you're numb. Your body doesn't sense anything wrong yet, so it isn't swelling yet — and with a numb cheek you can give yourself freezer burn without feeling it. Start cold compresses once the numbness begins wearing off.
Days 1–4: Wash-Away Foods Only
- You can't irrigate until day 4. Anything solid you eat before then sits in the sockets for days — and then it really hurts.
- And here's the kicker: you won't know if it hurts because of the surgery or because there's macaroni and cheese packed in the hole.
- Good: smoothies, yogurt, ice cream, pudding, applesauce, mashed potatoes, warm (not hot) creamy soups.
Day 4 and Beyond: Common Sense Wins
- Day 4 you start the irrigation syringe — but that doesn't mean pizza night. The longer you stay on wash-away foods, the easier irrigation is and the fewer problems you'll have.
- Good news: the sockets heal from the bottom up, getting shallower every day, while also closing from the top. By day 7 or 8 they're shallow enough that anything rinses right out.
- The lower sites are the troublemakers — gravity works against you, and everything you swallow passes right by them. Be extra patient with the lowers.
- The test for any food: could it dissolve in your mouth without chewing? Then it's safe. Would it still be sitting there in chunks? Wait a few more days.
If Your Site Hurts, Irrigate Before You Call
This is the number one reason patients call us in pain — and the number one thing that fixes it in minutes.
Staying on a liquid or soft diet keeps large pieces out. It does not keep your sockets clean. Liquid food settles into them just as easily — it simply doesn't announce itself the way a piece of rice does. So people assume they're fine and skip irrigating.
Picture everything you've been living on: creamy soup, mashed potatoes, ice cream. Seal it in a Ziploc bag and leave it in the Houston heat for two days — except your mouth runs at 98.6°, hotter than most Houston days, and it never cools off overnight. Open that bag. What does it smell like? Would you put that in your mouth?
That is what is sitting in your socket, and that is why it hurts. Your body is working to heal around rotting food and the ache is it telling you to get that out.
So before you call: irrigate that site thoroughly, 5 or 6 passes, until the water runs clear. Most people feel noticeably better within 5 to 10 minutes.
Still Hurting After You Irrigate? Send Us a Video
If you've flushed it out and it still hurts, the next thing we need to see is how you're irrigating. Very often the technique is slightly off — the tip isn't reaching the socket, the angle is wrong, or you're being too gentle — and none of that is something we can figure out over the phone.
Record a short video of yourself irrigating one site and text it to 832.600.6878. Prop your phone up or have someone hold it. Dr. Foust can usually spot the problem in a few seconds and tell you exactly what to change.
Prefer to do it live? We can FaceTime instead. Just have your syringe, cup, and mouth rinse ready before we connect so we can watch the actual irrigation rather than spend the call waiting on setup.
Dr. Foust's Knee Analogy
Say you cut your knee. It doesn't hurt that bad, so you decide to pack a bunch of macaroni and cheese into the cut before bed and see what happens. You wake up in the middle of the night — "man, my knee is KILLING me. I must have had a bad doctor." ...Or maybe take the macaroni and cheese out of the cut and see how it feels. Your sockets work the same way. Keep food out of the wound and the wound behaves.
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