Have you experienced endodontic therapy earlier? If not, you may wonder what to expect during the recovery. Generally, recovering from root canal therapy is less challenging than recovering from tooth extraction. However, it would help if you stocked up your pantry for the days following the treatment to reduce stress on the treated tooth.
Eating Suggestions after Root Canal Treatment
When undergoing boot canal treatment, the dentist considers your anxiety level before providing you options to sedate yourself. Sedation helps to relieve your anxiety, making you calmer during this procedure. However, you receive local anesthesia in your mouth for pain management that requires a couple of hours before wearing off. Therefore you must exercise caution before having any foods or scorching liquids while your mouth is numb.
The dentist in Mesa, AZ, recommends you wait until the anesthesia has entirely worn off and your mouth is no longer numb. The precaution is to ensure you don’t injure your mouth soft tissue while the numbness persists.
After your endodontic therapy, you must avoid sticky foods like jellybeans and chewing gum because these foods can loosen or dislodge the temporary filling placed by the dentist in your tooth. You help yourself by eating soft foods requiring little chewing. Following your treatment, your treated tooth will likely remain sensitive for a few days. Complex and scorching goods can irritate the treated tooth. Whenever you eat, chew from the opposite of the mouth.
You can continue brushing and flossing as you do regularly to ensure the treated tooth remains free of food particles and bacteria.
Foods to Eat after Root Canal Procedure
You shouldn’t encounter any challenges eating soft foods comfortably after receiving root canal therapy. You must, however, exercise caution to ensure you avoid chewing or biting with the treated tooth. The following foods can help you build your meals after endodontic treatment. Your dentist also provides comprehensive after-care instructions following the procedure.
- You can satisfy your requirement of dairy products using yogurt, soft cheeses, and cottage cheese.
- You need fruits and vegetables that you can get from pureed soups, smoothies, applesauce, bananas, mangoes, peaches, ripe pears, baked sweet potatoes, pureed winter squash, and avocado.
- Look for proteins in eggs, canned chicken or tuna, hummus, tofu, meatloaf, nut butter, and legumes. Satisfy your desire for grains using couscous, quinoa, pasta, oatmeal, polenta, and cream of wheat.
Foods to Avoid after Endodontic Therapy
The dentist near me recommends you avoid some food categories after endodontic therapy. The foods they recommend avoiding can aggravate your sensitivity or compromise the temporary filling. Therefore, it would be best to wait for some time before gradually reintroducing it into your diet.
The dentist recommends avoiding scorching and freezing foods and beverages that irritate the treated tooth. Sticky foods like caramel, candies, and gum are better left for having after you recover. You must avoid your favorite T-bone steak and crusty bread besides hard foods like nuts. Tortilla chips and crunchy foods like pretzels are best avoided until you have your tooth restored with a permanent filling or a dental crown.
After you eventually recover from the endodontic procedure and revisit your dentist to restore the treated tooth, the dentist x-rays the tooth to confirm whether the infection is eliminated from your body before offering you options of choosing between permanent filling or a dental crown.
You might think a permanent filling will serve the purpose and close the access hole created during root canal therapy to seal out food particles and bacteria. However, suppose you want to restore the tooth to its former functionality without affecting its appearance. In that case, you should prefer a porcelain dental crown resembling your natural teeth and remaining in your mouth for ten years or more with proper dental hygiene.
Getting dental crowns will require two visits to your dentist to reshape your tooth and have your crown customized explicitly for your mouth in a dental lab. However, the crown helps restore your tooth’s size, strength, and appearance.
You can start having your regular diet after the permanent restoration is in place. However, you must exercise caution not to eat certain foods if the treated tooth feels tender. In such cases, the better option is to stop eating the particular food and try it another day. However, if the pain persists with soreness beyond a week or more, contact your dentist for further evaluations.
If you need endodontic therapy for a tooth in your mouth, please do not hesitate to contact Family Care Dental providing comfortable root canal therapy besides after-care instructions to ensure their restore your oral health without making you endure unnecessary discomfort.