What to do once you get home.

Find your appointment:

• After a filling
• After a crown or bridge (temporary stage)
• After root canal treatment
• After an extraction
• After bone grafting
• After a deep cleaning (scaling and root planing)
• After new dentures
• After an immediate denture
• After veneers
• After tooth whitening

Reviewed August 2026. General guidance for patients of this practice — it does not replace the specific instructions you were given in the chair. When the two differ, follow what you were told in the office.

After a filling

The numbness is the part that catches people out. Until it wears off — usually two to four hours — do not chew and do not drink anything hot, because you cannot feel a bitten lip or a burnt tongue until later.

• Composite (tooth-coloured) fillings are fully set when you leave; you can eat as soon as the anesthetic has gone.
• Some sensitivity to hot, cold and pressure for a few days is normal, and so is soreness at the injection site.
• Over-the-counter ibuprofen or acetaminophen handles it for most people. Follow the dose on the packet.
• If the new filling feels tall — if it touches before your other teeth do — call. That is a two-minute adjustment and it does not settle on its own.

After a crown or bridge (temporary stage)

A temporary crown is held on lightly on purpose, so it can come off without damaging the tooth underneath. Your job for the next two weeks is to keep it there.

• Avoid caramel, toffee and chewing gum — sticky food lifts temporaries off.
• Floss by pulling the floss out sideways rather than snapping it up through the contact.
• If the temporary does come off, keep it, and call the office. Do not leave the tooth uncovered even if it does not hurt — neighbouring teeth drift within days and the final crown then does not fit.
• Warm salt-water rinses help sore gums. Sensitivity to hot and cold at this stage is expected; it goes when the definitive crown is cemented.

After root canal treatment

Expect the tooth to be tender to bite on for several days, particularly if you arrived with a severe ache or swelling. That tenderness is the ligament around the root settling down, not a sign the treatment failed.

• Take the pain relief you were advised to take, and rinse with warm salt water two or three times a day.
• If antibiotics were prescribed, finish the course even once the symptoms have gone.
• Avoid chewing on that side until the definitive crown is fitted. A root-treated tooth is brittle and splits easily without one.
• A small piece of the temporary filling wearing away is normal. The whole filling falling out is not — call.

After an extraction

Everything about the first day is aimed at protecting the blood clot in the socket. Bite firmly on the gauze for thirty to forty-five minutes, and change it if bleeding continues.

• For the first 72 hours: no vigorous rinsing, no drinking through a straw, no smoking, no alcohol, and no brushing the teeth directly beside the socket.
• A moist tea bag wrapped in gauze, bitten on for twenty minutes, often settles stubborn oozing.
• An ice pack on the cheek — twenty minutes on, twenty off — keeps swelling down on the first day. Swelling usually peaks around 48 hours and then eases.
• Soft food and plenty of fluid on the day. Go back to normal brushing and flossing after 24 hours; a clean mouth heals faster.
• Call the office if you have heavy bleeding, pain that is getting worse rather than better after day three, swelling that keeps increasing, or a reaction to a medication.

After bone grafting

Everything in the extraction instructions applies, plus one thing specific to grafts: the material is granular, and finding a few small granules in your mouth over the first days is normal, not a sign the graft has failed.

• Do not rinse hard or spit for the first three to five days.
• Do not press on the site with your tongue or your finger. The graft is movable early on and it heals best left alone.
• Do not lift the lip to inspect it. Pulling on the lip strains the stitches.
• If a membrane or stitch becomes loose, call rather than pulling at it.

After a deep cleaning (scaling and root planing)

Gums that have been cleaned below the gumline are usually tender for a day or two and may look as though they have shrunk back. They have not — the swelling has gone down, which is the point of the treatment.

• Warm salt-water rinses two or three times a day for the first few days.
• Sensitivity to cold is common for a week or two. A sensitivity toothpaste, used consistently, is the fix.
• Soft food while the gums are sore, and back to normal brushing straight away — gently, but every day.
• Keep the follow-up appointment. Deep cleaning works only if what caused the build-up is dealt with, and that is what the review is for.

After new dentures

A new denture takes practice. Sore spots in the first week are expected and are adjusted at a review appointment — they are not a sign the denture is wrong.

• Wear the denture on the day before your adjustment appointment even if it is sore, otherwise the tissue recovers and the sore spot cannot be found.
• Start with soft food cut small, chewing on both sides at once. Speech settles within a couple of weeks with practice.
• Clean the denture over a basin of water so it does not shatter if dropped. Brush it with a denture brush and soap or denture cleaner, not toothpaste — toothpaste scratches acrylic.
• Leave it out at night unless you were told otherwise, and keep it in water so it does not dry out and warp.

After an immediate denture

An immediate denture goes in on the day the teeth come out, so it doubles as a dressing over the sockets. Leave it in for the first 24 hours, including overnight, unless you were told something different.

• Removing it too early lets the gum swell, and it can then be difficult to get back in.
• The fit will change as the gum shrinks over the following months. That is expected; it is why a reline or a definitive denture is planned into the treatment from the start.
• Salt-water rinses from the day after surgery, gently.
• Come to every review. The adjustments in the first weeks are what make the denture usable.

After veneers

Bonded porcelain is strong in the direction it was designed for and vulnerable to the things you were probably already avoiding. Treat the edges with respect.

• No biting nails, pens, ice or bottle tops, and nothing hard eaten straight from the front teeth — cut it and use your back teeth.
• Gum tenderness at the margins for a few days is normal, and so is brief cold sensitivity.
• Floss daily. The margin where porcelain meets tooth is where decay would start if plaque sits there.
• If you grind your teeth at night, wear the guard you were given. Grinding is the most common reason a veneer chips.

After tooth whitening

Sensitivity for up to a week is the usual side effect, and it is temporary. Brushing with a sensitivity toothpaste for the week before and the week after the appointment reduces it noticeably.

• For the first 48 hours avoid anything that would stain a white shirt: coffee, tea, red wine, cola, curry, tomato sauce, berries. Smoking is the worst of them.
• The shade rebounds slightly over the first days and then holds. Judge the result after a week, not on the evening of the appointment.
• Existing crowns, veneers and fillings do not whiten. If they now look darker than the teeth around them, that is worth discussing — it is a common reason people go on to replace an old front filling.
• Top-up trays keep the result going. Overusing them does not make teeth whiter; it makes them sensitive.

When to call instead of waiting

Any of these is a reason to phone 732-428-4080 rather than see how it goes:

• Bleeding that has not settled after an hour of firm pressure on gauze.
• Pain that is worse on day three or four than it was on day one — that pattern suggests a dry socket or an infection, and both are treatable.
• Swelling that is still increasing after 48 hours, or swelling that reaches the eye or under the jaw.
• A temperature, or a bad taste that will not rinse away.
• A rash, wheeze or any other reaction to a prescribed medication — that one is urgent.
• A temporary crown or bridge that has come off, even if it does not hurt.