Question:

I had a gum graft 8 days ago. I went to the Periodontist yesterday for her to check the graft and the donor site as I have had excruciating pain in the donor site since the surgery.

Motrin 800 combined with Vicodin does not relieve the pain and I am unable to eat anything solid or sleep for any great length of time without horrible pain.

She stated that the site was healing nicely and that I should not have pain and left it at that. I am beside myself with pain right now and only have a few Motrin 800 left to quell some of the pain.

I do not want more pain medicine. I want to know why I am having so much pain if it looks like it is healing. Is it possible there is a problem with healing around the nerves?

Answer:

Generally, this type of continuous (not decreasing after surgery) pain from donor site occurs due to exposed bone. It is hard to detect this clinically when there is a fresh wound.

You may want to call back to your doctor’s office and tell them that the pain is still there and it is not going down even with analgesics.

She may need to give you local anesthetics and explore the area with an instrument to check for exposed bone. Of course, this is an assumption since I do not know what type of gum graft surgery she performed. (There are two types).

For more information:

Go to the Gum Diseases health topic.