Excessive Bleeding Of Wisdom Teeth (well after surgery)?

My surgery on my wisdom teeth (all four) was last Friday (2/8/08). It has been 8 days since my surgery and according to the dentist my bleeding should be stopped and everything should be going well. That is true for my right side only despite a stitch falling out a few days after surgery. The left side was a problem and that resulted in a badly bruised cheek that has also failed to go away. I have blood STILL coming from the wound on my left side. It is the most disgusting taste in the world, it tastes far different from the taste of my normal blood (if I cut my finger and taste that it would be a more coppery taste, this taste is like dead fish or even worse). It makes me gag to taste it and I have no stopping it. It has been nonstop for two days now and it comes and goes in a matter of an hour or two. I need to know if it is infected, I will be calling my doctor on Monday however until then I would hope someone can help explain this.
Thank you.

The terrible taste may be a sign of infection in the healing tissue. Give your dentist a call and set up an appointment ASAP.

PS -- it's funny; I didn't read any of the other answers first, and not only did you get the same answer twice, you got the same "ASAP" :-) Hope everything's better soon...

you should give your dentist a call because if it smells or tastes that bad, it is probably infected and you should be put on antibiotics. The bleeding doesn't seem right either after an entire week either. I know mine weren't bleeding that long after. Good Luck.

Hi, I'm a dentist.

It sounds like you have an infection going one of the sockets. You need to see the dentist that did the work ASAP. That socket probably needs to be debrided (cleaned/scraped out) and packed (medicated).

Best of luck.

From your description, it does sound like it is infected. It should have stopped bleeding after a couple of day. I am shocked to hear that the dentist did not prescribed antibiotics and pain medicine after your surgery. Right now, you need to go and rinse with warm salt water every few hours. Do not spit the water out, just let it roll out of your mouth. You don't want to end up having dry sockets. Also stay away from fried foods and dairy products. Go see your dentist asap and get some antibiotics.

it sounds like it is infected hon. the foul taste does it have a foul smell too? what color is the blood? (yellow, white, clear, or just like blood clot) you need to get in and see the dentist real soon. I had something similar when i had all 4 of mine pulled. it turned out that part of my jaw bone splintered off just a little bit and it eventually came up thru the hole from being pulled.

If you are getting a bad fishy taste, you probably have an infection. I would suggest rinsing your mouth out with warm salty water and then taking sterile gauze and biting down on it firmly and see if you can get the bleeding to stop. If you can't, you need to go to the emergency room of the hospital. Serious infections in your mouth can cause serious infections in other parts of your body.