i'm 40 years old and just had ALL my teeth extracted in one go. The pain is excruciating. Any tips for pain relief?
EDIT; I can't reply to everyone individually but thanks for all the suggestions!
Opiates are out of the question, doctors here will only prescribe those in terms of absolutely extreme suffering or end of life care. I also don't particularly feel interested in developing a hard drug habit.
Diclofenac and such are available but also only on separate prescriptions, I'd have to visit another doctor for that.
I'm well stocked on paracetamol & ibuprofen, and apart from that, lots of ice cream, pudding & soup :)
Also, since a fair few people seem to doubt the veracity of my story, here's the 22 extracted teeth (the other 10 were already gone in previous extractions).
They sell ibuprofen with acetaminophen at the pharmacy, off the shelf, so that's not an issue.
It is recommended to alternate between the two so that you are always under the effect of either one and it reduces the pain throughout the day, instead of having big spikes of pain/no-pain.
I mean you can combine them, if the pain is expected to be short term, but in OP’s case the pain is likely to be longer term, where alternating may be a better choice. For example Excedrin is a combo of acetaminophen, NSAID (aspirin), and caffeine.
Yeah Combogesic is an example of combined ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Advil also makes a combo of the two as well. The main issue to keep track of what you're taking and take care that you don't exceed the daily dose for each. That's something to watch out for whether you take them separately or in combination with one another.
It's perfectly safe to take them at the same time and was the exact advice given to me after having my wisdom teeth extracted. You can even buy medication that has both ingredients, like Excedrin. One is metabolized by the kidneys and the other by the liver.
This combination is actually shown to work better than opiates for dental pain