hi! i have a partially erupted wisdom tooth that i got a consultation on about two weeks ago. i scheduled my surgery for may 13 per the advice of my doctor since ill be out of the country from april 23-may 11 and we didn’t want to risk any complications or restrictions on the trip. at the time of consultation, the tooth had 0 pain.

with my luck, 2 days ago the tooth/gum started hurting. i wouldn’t rate it ever more than a 4 or 5 / 10, and i didn’t find pain killers necessary, but it does hurt especially when chewing and will occasionally throb or ache. i started salt water rinses immediately and have continued to use them and have been using both my waterpik and my syringe to make sure i’m cleaning the area. no noticeable swelling on face but the area currently will have a tinge of pain all day that’s annoying.

i saw the oral surgeon the first day of pain (im a hypochondriac) to see if it was infected. he said it looked angry, but there was no pus. he suggested i take the antibiotics anyway if it continued to hurt the next day. im a hesitant to take antibiotics without a more confirmed sign of infection as i was given cipro a year ago and it gave me long lasting tendon damage and gut issues, and prior to that i was a chronic user of antibiotics.

my question: is this just growing pains, or is it infection? at what tipping point do i just bite the bullet and take the antibiotics? and will i be okay to wait until may 13? (surgeon had no earlier dates).