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Four documents · read 24 September 2026 · no dentist reviewed it

What the paperwork says a tooth costs, and what the fortnight after looks like.

One tooth socket drawn at five stages, from an open socket on the day of the surgery to a closed ridge weeks later, under an arc of five day markers.
  1. The dayan open socket
  2. Hoursa plug forms
  3. Daysnew tissue, paler
  4. A week or sogum drawing across
  5. Weeksa closed ridge

The five panels run left to right, in that order.

What the priced lines sayWhen you can eat again

Socket Sense reads published documents so you do not have to: three public fee schedules for the money, and two national health bodies for the healing. Every figure on the site names the document and the day we read it. Nobody here is a dentist, and we say so on every page.

One socket, five stages
  1. The dayPressure, not inspectionThe NHS page says that if bleeding starts, press the area for at least 10 minutes with a clean cloth or piece of cotton wool. It also says not to drive for 48 hours after a general anaesthetic, or 24 hours after a sedative injection.
  2. Day 1Soft food and a gentle mouthEat soft or liquid food until chewing is comfortable again, clean the other teeth carefully and keep away from the wound, and if you rinse, rinse gently. Those are the NHS page's words, and the ADA's extraction page agrees on all three.
  3. Days 2–3Swelling should be on its way downThe NHS page says pain and swelling should start to improve after 1 or 2 days, and that bruising on the cheek and a sore, stiff jaw can carry on. Swelling that is getting worse instead is on the urgent list, not this one.
  4. About a weekStitches go on their ownIf there were stitches, the NHS page says they dissolve by themselves. A blood clot forms over the wound and helps it heal, which is why almost every instruction on this site is really about leaving that clot alone.
  5. Up to 2 weeksThe outside edge of normalThe NHS page puts pain, swelling, bruising, a stiff jaw and awkward chewing inside a window of up to 2 weeks. Beyond that window, or worse instead of better inside it, is a reason to be seen.

Every sentence in this strip is quoted or closely paraphrased from a page named on our facts page. The strip adds nothing of its own, which is the only reason it can exist on a site no clinician has read.

Why there are no dollar signs in that strip

Because the two organisations that describe healing well — the NHS and the American Dental Association — publish no prices, and the organisations that publish prices describe healing not at all. So this site keeps the two apart. The healing pages quote health bodies. The cost page quotes fee schedules, line by line, and shows the arithmetic whenever a total is ours rather than theirs.

On 24 September 2026 we went looking for a free, public, primary source that publishes what an American dental surgery actually charges a cash patient to take a tooth out. We did not find one. Rather than soften that into a range with a plausible shape, we priced the thing that is published: what three public payers say they will pay a dentist per tooth. Those are not retail prices, and the cost page says so before it says anything else.

What is on this site

Two landing pages and ten short entries, in roughly the order the worries arrive.

Five things people ask before they read anything else

Is this site written by a dentist?

No. Socket Sense is written by researchers who read published documents and check the arithmetic. No dentist reviews it, no dentist is named on it, and no page here carries a reviewer in its structured data. If you want a page a clinician has signed, this is not one.

Can you tell me whether my socket looks normal?

No, and neither can any website. A socket is assessed by somebody who can see it, ideally the person who made it. What this site can do is quote what published guidance calls ordinary healing and what it calls a reason to ring — see dry socket, or ordinary healing.

Why do you price from Medicaid schedules rather than from a surgery's price list?

Because the schedules are published, dated, complete and free to read, and surgery price lists mostly are not. A payer maximum is not what a cash patient is charged; it is a floor under an argument, and it is the only figure in this area that anybody can check. The cost page repeats that caveat in the sentence beside every number.

Do you get paid?

Two links on this site are paid, both on cost pages, both labelled in the paragraph above them. We turned down four other ways to be paid, including the obvious one — being paid when a frightened reader books an appointment — and the reasons are written out on the disclosure page.

How old are these figures?

Every document on the site was read on 24 September 2026, and each carries its own effective date: 1 January 2026 for Louisiana, 1 July 2026 for Illinois, a run date of 16 September 2026 for Arkansas, and June 2026 for the Vermont rule book. Fee schedules are reissued; a link to a newer one is the most useful message we can get.

The day book

Ten pages, each one about a single day or a single worry

Dry socket, or ordinary healing

The difference, as two published sources describe it — and the honest admission that a website cannot tell them apart for you.

Read on Sep 24, 2026

Smoking and vaping after an extraction

Smoking is one of the few behaviours the published guidance names directly. Vaping is not named at all, and this page is honest about what that silence is worth.

Read on Sep 24, 2026

Straws and gauze: the first 24 hours

The two most precise instructions in all of the published guidance both belong to the first day, and both are about the same thing.

Read on Sep 24, 2026