I'm about to have my last wisdom teeth removed. I put it off for as long as I could, but one is trying to erupt now and it's thrown my bite off on one side. I can currently chew fairly soft foods (lunchmeat and cheese slice rollups leaves me aching for hours - even through the drugs) and on Tuesday I'm going to the oral surgeon. Their recommendation is that I eat a lot of pudding and ice cream for the first 3 days, slowly moving up to applesauce and overcooked noodles. I've had such a hard time eating enough calories that I tried adding pudding and overcooked pasta for a few days. It just makes me feel worse. I had forgotten how lousy I felt on a high-carb diet.

I'm not too worried about actual carb counts for post-surgery, but I do want to avoid straight starch and sugar and make sure I get enough protein in. I'm slurping protein shakes now - but I have such an aversion to the sweetness that it's hard to get a whole one down.

Any suggestions for foods I can cook that don't require chewing, are full of protein, low-carb and don't taste sweet? I'd be absolutely delighted if there were some veggies included, since I haven't managed to eat much besides some very mushy cauliflower and zucchini.

Many, many, many thanks.

Well they told me to start eating normally asap. I ended up with dry socket in one hole but it wasn't due to eating. That first day I had soups and shakes. The next day I started eating normally but softer stuff. Eggs, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, stuff like that. Good luck! I hope you don't get dry socket, that hurt. They gave a syringe thing I could use to clean out the holes after eating, that helped too.

Ouch - my sympathy.

Veggies: ever had canned pumpkin? It's usually associated with a sweet taste, but it goes well with curry powder, too. Avocado is another easy masher. And you can puree almost any veggie soup.

Protein: eggs are the softest, but tuna, chicken, turkey or ham flakes can be made into a pretty mushy salad.

Here's what I subsided on when my braces were bugging me: soft food ideas. Good luck...

Yeah, that's standard procedure. Mine is a complicated extraction, and I have 4 teeth that are currently painful when I close my mouth with no pressure. They're concerned that the rear two molars (which are two of the painful teeth) have higher risk of infection/nerve death because the wisdom tooth crown is directly against the roots of the rear tooth so I'll have an opening down to the root. They want me to put as little pressure as possible on those teeth until the gum starts closing up to avoid excess inflammation making the teeth less resistant. I'm sure that's more information than you really wanted. Really, the thought that a wisdom tooth removal could mean I needed 2 root canals *too* is just miserable.

I'll have to pick up some cottage cheese for the next few days. I can add pepper and salt and call it savory. Aged cheese is currently too hard for me to eat except in the very thinest shavings, but a nice creamy cheese soup might be a good idea too.

Thanks

Oh, I forgot, we have a butternut squash hanging around that is probably still good. Buttered butternut would be a nice vitamin-rich thing to eat, and even all doped up it's hard to screw up baked squash.


Yeah, I stopped being able to eat chicken salad about 3 days ago - it just causes too much pain. I might try some food processor egg salad again though. I just have to resist the urge to eat it on something.



Ah, many thanks. There are lots of good suggestions in that thread.

I bet you could do it ahead of time and keep it in the fridge.

Actually, my wisdom teeth were entirely impacted so it wasn't simple at all.

Erm, I don't want to get into a "my extractions are worse than your extractions" discussion. There are reasons that this extraction is more difficult than a "standard" full bony wisdom tooth extraction, and extenuating circumstances calling for additional attention to post-operative food. What you described is the usual post-operative protocol for wisdom tooth extractions, both for my oral surgeon and for most oral surgeons. It's not what he wants for my particular extraction because of the current condition of the gum tissue around my third molar and the mechanics of the extraction/current position of the wisdom tooth.

If it seemed like I was minimizing your experience, that wasn't my intention. Dry sockets can be miserable, and I'm sorry you had that experience. I'm trying very hard not to think about it, because pre-surgery I'm having a lot of break-through pain on vicodin stacked with ketoprofen. The thought that it could be worse a few days after surgery is just more than I can bear right now.

On the bright side, broccoli cheese soup was a success today at lunch, and DH has offered to make smooth creamy soups for as long as I need them. We'll spend the weekend figuring out how to get them smooth enough (immersion blender/regular blender/food processor/strainer/etc) and then I'll have soup in the fridge for the first few post-surgery days.

I'd make a soup with meat and veggies. If you can't handle the soft meats and veggies right away, put them in the blender with a little bit of the broth. I used to make babyfood this way- but it also works for grown-ups with tooth trouble. Or, you could just buy baby food and plan on adding some salt and spices before eating them.

Cooked squash or pumpkin with butter and/or cream is good, as are scrambled eggs and egg salad.

Blended soup does seem to be what's working. We can even blend chicken smooth enough that it doesn't bother me, which is really good. I can't quite bring myself to eat baby food, although I may be reduced to that before tuesday.

We're going to cook up the butternut squash and use buttered squash as a step-up food. I'm hoping that once the oral surgery is over I'll be able to do the limited amount of chewing that requires. If not we'll add water/milk and butter and blend it into soup.

so, should i feel guilty for having all my wisdom teeth come in straight, aligned, and my mouth had room for all of them? my dentist even yelled at me... said "how do you expect me to make any money off you when your teeth keep coming in perfectly?"

i was going to suggest soups too, especially chicken where the meat and veggies have been cooked into submission. or you could do a rich, thick alfredo sauce and add soft veggies to that. the fat content alone in the sauce would help keep you satiated.

good luck with the surgery. i have enough problems with other parts of my body to make up for the lack of dental history.

Whey protein shakes? They don't taste overly sweet to me.

Rinsing the mouth out with food grade hydrogen peroxide mixed with water will help the gums heal; vitamin D will help, also.

Sounds very nasty, sorry you have to go through this.

The dry socket was painful at first but when they had me coming in every day or two to repack it it helped the pain a lot.

I wish I'd known about vitamin D3 at the time.

Well, now that I'm on 4 days post-op I'm much less cranky. It's taken this long to get better than pre-surgery though. I spent about 7 days pre-surgery only being able to eat soup/pudding/shakes and yesterday I managed a little bit of mashed potato with some very, very soft braised pork.

This morning I'm back to shakes because the pork left me with a pretty nasty jaw ache. At least I'm up to protein shake instead of milkshake, and I'll try some soft scrambled eggs once my stomach settles enough.

I was thinking that revolution rolls with very soft pimento cheese might be an option too. They're fairly soft and cohesive. I definitely need more protein, since I'm showing distinct signs of catabolosis. Very low calorie diets with essentially nil protein are a bad idea even for a couple of weeks, IMO. I need to start somewhat tracking protein grams and get them back into my PP ranges ASAP.

Bleh. 2 months ago my (now replaced) dentist said "that wisdom tooth is going to cause problems eventually, but let's not take it out now, because I don't know anyone who would touch it". I'd much rather have taken it out before it caused all these problems. At least now that the wisdom tooth is out the infection doesn't have a reservoir to hide in anymore. Fighting off infection takes a lot out of you.

I'm dutifully swishing with salt water after everything I eat, and I gt to start actually brushing my teeth again today - woohoo! I will bump up my vitamin D. I've been a little lax with my supplements lately. Too many pills to juggle post-op (non-narcotic pain pills, narcotics, antibiotics, anti-swelling, osmotic laxative to counteract the anti-swelling pills, stimulant laxative to counteract the narcotic pain pills). It's really disturbing when you need a spreadsheet to track everything you take.

Ok - that's enough whining from me for today. I need to return my library books, make some revolution rolls and try to do some laundry. The pre-schooler requests a playground visit too, so I'll have to save some energy for that too.