Good Foods to Eat After Oral Surgery

After having oral surgery, including having wisdom teeth removed, it's likely your surgeon will recommend that you eat liquid or soft foods. It's important NOT TO DIET for weight loss during recovery. You should eat a high-calorie, high-protein diet to help with healing, but the foods often recommended can get monotonous.

One of the major complaints from those recovering from oral surgery is that many of the recommended soft foods are sweet, and even someone with a sweet tooth can grow tired of an all-ice cream diet.

Of course, you should follow any specific instructions from your oral surgeon on healing foods after oral surgery. But, if you're looking for additional advice, here are a few suggestions, both traditional and outside-the-box, for sweet and savory foods to eat after oral surgery.

Hours 0-12: The first few hours after surgery, you will likely want to stick with all-liquid foods or foods that melt easily in your mouth. Many people find they prefer cold foods at this time in healing process and may find hot soups cause discomfort. Stick to foods that are lukewarm or cold and only gradually introduce hotter foods. Also, your jaw may be so sore that it's difficult to open it wide, so use a narrow spoon to eat your cool or lukewarm foods.

Sweet suggestions: Ice cream, malts or shakes, chocolate milk, yogurt, smoothies, fruit juice. You may feel like drinking cola or ginger ale if you have an upset stomach, but the bubbles from carbonation may cause discomfort. Allow the soda pop to lose some of its fizz to make drinking more comfortable.

Savory suggestions: Broth, creamy soups with no large chunks or noodles. Again, you may want to be careful to let these cool to lukewarm before eating as hot foods cause discomfort for some oral surgery patients.

Caution: It may be tempting to use a straw, but don't! The suction can cause the blood clots on your surgery to fall off, and you may develop a painful condition called "dry socket." For this reason, some doctors also caution against sticky food, such as peanut butter. The suction needed to suck sticky foods down can also lead to dry socket.

Hours 13-24: As time passes, you can move on to foods that are still soft but not completely liquid. Your oral surgeon will likely tell you to judge for yourself what you can handle at this point. Warmer foods may be introduced at this point if they don't cause discomfort.

Sweet suggestions: Pudding, including rice pudding, jam on soft bread (not chewy or crusty), plain chocolate (allow to melt on the tongue), ripe banana.

Savory suggestions: Soups with very soft noodles, well-cooked beans, deviled ham, hummus or tuna salad on soft bread, cheese puffs (or other snack foods that can melt in the mouth rather than being chewed), scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes or mashed sweet potatoes, well-cooked pasta, soft cheese, avocado slices.

Caution: Continue to avoid straws, and be careful with foods - for example, raspberry jam - that have seeds that could get lodged in the tooth socket or oral surgery wound.

Hours 25-48: At this point, it's up to you what kind of foods you should eat and which cause pain. If you're still really sore, continue with soft foods. However, the only way to get rid of a stiff feeling in your jaw is to use it, so gradually begin adding in foods that require chewing if you can.

Sweet suggestions: Pudding, frozen treats, soft cake or brownies with no nuts.

Savory suggestions: Pasta, well-cooked vegetables, tender cuts of meat or fish, soft breads, beans.

Caution: Foods that may still cause discomfort are those that require a lot of crunching or jaw strength, such as chewy bagels or nuts. Introduce these back into your diet gradually.

Day 3 and beyond: Unless you develop dry socket, you will probably begin to feel better by now. You can resume mostly normal eating, but be careful as you introduce new foods. Foods with sharp edges, such as tortilla chips, may still cause discomfort. And remember to continue to rinse after meals and snacks to keep your mouth clean and aid in the healing process.