Gum graft surgery

Health and Aging
1

Well that was fun.

As a sign that im officially old, I had gum graft surgery yesterday. My lower inner gums are receeding, exposing the roots a bit. I was told this is necessary. Ugh.

Had one appointment to talk about it, another to get an impression for the stent (more later) and the surgery was yesterday.

Essentially, from what I could tell, they ripped the gums off the back of the middle 4 teeth, took a bit of donor tissue from the top of my mouth (which was NOT consulted and was rather pissed off because it wasn’t the problem) and this bit of tissue was fiddled with by the surgeon before he sewed it back as part of my lower inner gums. I was about 2 1/2 hours in the chair.

The stent is a plastic cover for the roof of my mouth that was collateral damage from this whole experience.

Was fine leaving the surgery. As the freezing wore off, I was pretty impatient to get the super ibuprofen prescription filled. A few minutes after that pill went down, I was fine.

Eating is fun and mostly consists of smoothies and lukewarm soup.

But I’m almost 24 hour post surgery now. Doing okay. Lots of mouth rinsing with salt water or a special mouthwash.

I hope this works. I really don’t want to do it again.

2

It sounds perfectly ghastly! Sending you healing vibes.

3

Hey, it’s not life-threatening. It’s just annoying.

4

One week post-op checkup went well. Except im brushing too close to the new gums. Oops.

5

Three weeks later and all is pretty good. Gums are healing and I can eat most anything. Stitches on the roof of the mouth where they got the donor tissue from is fine and those stitches fell out themselves. Stitches in gums are slowly breaking in a couple of places but will likely come out in next week’s appointment.

As something to randomly do on a Wednesday, I don’t suggest oral surgery. But it’s not the end of the world.

6

Final checkup went well. The surgeon had colleagues come and look in my mouth to brag. I made fun of him for it. Last two stitches thst did not take the hint were snipped and removed.

Then pictures were taken. Then taken again to make sure they were at the same angle as pre-surgery for an accurate before/after shot.

I may have asked the surgeon if he wanted to show his mother.