Apologies for any weird formatting. I’m a lurker with no idea how to post. For context, I live in the USA, asscrack of the planet.
I had a surgical extraction of a broken tooth at an oral surgeon in a town about an hour away from me. It was a little bit brutal, so I was told to load up on the prescribed ibuprofen/acetominophen and start antibiotics that evening after surgery. After the hour drive home, I went to the pharmacy that I had listed in my paperwork. They had no scripts for me since last year. I called the surgeon’s office. The woman on the phone said she saw them in her system, had an hour left in her shift, and would call me if she saw them sent out. I told her not to worry, that the pharmacy would contact me as soon as they received it. I assumed there was no way they’d leave a patient without post-op meds. Well, I was wrong.
They never sent my prescriptions before closing up for the weekend.
The office doesn’t have an emergency number of any kind. Voicemails or text messages can be left for them to check on Monday. What in the world do I do or even say to these incompetent assholes?
I’m managing my pain with my own medication, but it’s expensive, and they sure as hell aren’t antibiotics. I’m broke, if that helps.
I’ve had a tooth extraction or two before. The following advice is based on my memory and experience with that kind of surgery and being poor. I’m not a doctor. It’s highly negligent for the surgeon to abandon you over the weekend after a surgery.
You may not need pain meds beyond ibuprofen (you can take more than the recommended dose on the bottle for a short time). Acetaminophen is useless for treating the swelling and dental pain in my experience. Continue your other after care while you figure this out: rinse with warm salt water regularly, avoid foods with seeds, no drinking through a straw, apply ice packs regularly at intervals to keep the swelling down (ibuprofen will help with this also), whatever else they advised. Keeping the swelling down with ice packs, ibuprofen, and drinking cold water will do way more for your pain than whatever pain meds they prescribed. Sometimes I’d just keep a big glass of ice water nearby and hold the ice cold water in my mouth.
You will absolutely need the antibiotics ASAP though! Call a doctor, any doctor, urgent care, ER, whatever you have to do to get the antibiotics. I wouldn’t even mention the pain meds. When I’ve taken those pain meds, they did nothing for the pain in my mouth, but they did mean I didn’t notice bumping into a table and cutting my leg badly. And there is the non-zero chance that as soon as you mention painkillers, you’ll be labeled as drug seeking. Stay focused on the antibiotics, that’s the important med. Oral infections can go from “Do I have an infection?” to life threatening emergency in a surprisingly short time.