Expert: Rafael Mosery,D.D.S. - 11/16/2007

Question
I got two teeth extracted yesterday, #15 and #31. the lower one is doing perfect but last night I woke up in the middle of the night spitting/coughing up blood that was in a chunk (kind of thick and mucus like). Force of habit i moved my tongue over my teeth and found that it was attached to the upper tooth.  I pulled the rest of it out and rinsed my mouth with some salt water. About an hour later, I woke up with my mouth filled with blood and my nose bleeding.  I got my nose to stop and bit down on some gauze for almost 2 hours before i could control the bleeding.  I went to the Dr who performed the oral surgery but he says it looks just fine.  It just started bleeding badly again and I got another nose bleed.  Now whenever I swallow my nose and cheek make this awful high pitch suction type sound.  I cannot get it to stop and both my dentist and my oral surgeon's offices are now closed with no emergency contact number.  Do I need to go to the ER or is there something I can do to get this bleeding under control besides just biting down on the gauze.  It starts from out of no where!! I don't know what to do! Help!!

Answer
I can't comment on the nosebleed but regarding the extraction site-STOP rinsing.Place some sterile gauze on the site and apply pressure(bite down).Leave this in place for 20 to 30 minutes.Repeat if necessary.No rinsing,no drinking out of a straw and no spitting.Any one of these will disturb the clot and you'll start to bleed all over again.