If you can feel the stitches from your wisdom teeth, that is FANTASTIC news. You should pat yourself on the back because it means that you did not sustain any nerve injuries during the extraction.
Being able to feel the sutures is normal and is an indication that you’re on the road to recovery. As long as they’re not bothering you, you can simply let them dissolve on their own if they’re absorbable. If they’re non-absorbable, you will need to return to your dentist to have them removed.
Just to assuage your concerns, we’ll explain what we mean in depth.
Feeling stitches is normal
It is perfectly normal to feel the stitches from your wisdom teeth because it is an indication that your nerves are working properly. It’s also impossible for you to NOT feel them because they are a foreign body and your tongue will get curious.
Undamaged nerves
Being able to feel the sutures in the wisdom tooth hole is great news because it means your surgery went without a hitch. One of the complications for taking out these teeth is potential nerve damage.
If your nerve gets injured during the extraction, you will lose all sensation on that side of your face. In other words, you wouldn’t be able to feel the stitches at all.
The fact that you can feel them means that your nerves were undamaged and fully intact.
Impossible to not feel them
Stitches will be stitches and it is impossible not to feel them if you have them in your mouth. As a matter of fact, you’ll feel them if you had them anywhere else on your body too!
The image above shows a typical suture knot. It literally looks like sewing knot with threads sticking out. We would be amazed if you weren’t aware of these threads in your mouth.
Leave them alone to maximize healing
The purpose of the sutures is to assist with the socket closure and reduce secondary intention healing. In other words, leaving them in place will maximize your healing.
- Assist with socket closure. The stitches approximates the wound so the body doesn’t have to work as hard to close up the hole. Therefore, having stitches can reduce healing time while not having them would increase healing time.
- Reduce secondary intention healing. Having the wound edges closely approximated will encourage primary intention healing rather than secondary. In layman’s terms, there will be less scar tissue formation.
When do they come out?
Regardless of whether your wisdom teeth stitches are dissolvable or non-dissolvable, they should come out after 14 days.
- Non-absorbable sutures should be removed after 14 days.
- Absorbable sutures should fall out within 10-14 days on average.
Therefore, you should expect them to stay in your mouth for about 2 weeks on average. Although if they come out earlier than that, you may have a complication.
What to do if they’re bothering you
The most common reason for the stitches to be bothering you is if they’re too long. If they’re excessively long, they can irritate your cheeks by poking into them or even poking into your tongue. While it may not be painful, it can drive you nuts.
How to fix irritating stitches
- Cut them shorter. Not you but you can return to your dentist and have them cut the sutures shorter. It’s a quick procedure that takes less than 5 minutes.
- Redo the stitches. If the sutures can’t be trimmed shorter, your dentist can try removing it and placing a new one in a different spot. That may help reduce the irritation.
- Wait for them to dissolve. Most of the time, the wisdom teeth sutures are dissolvable, which means that they will resorb on their own. If you have the self-dissolving ones you could just wait and let them disappear all on their own after 10-14 days.
Takeaway
Overall, it isn’t a problem for you to feel the stitches in your wisdom tooth socket because it means that your nerves were undamaged from the extraction. As long as it’s not bothering you and driving you insane from poking your cheeks, you can leave them alone.
Leaving them in place will allow your body to maximize the healing. Typically the sutures can be removed or fall out in about 2 weeks.