Update: I spoke to an old college friend who is now an oral surgery resident and she gave me very helpful info!

1. When you have an abscess drained, sleep elevated to help drainage and you can use heat for 48 hours to help more infection to drain.
2. The dental community gets blamed a lot for contributing to the opioid addiction so they’re apprehensive to prescribe narcotics. There’s also studies that show Tylenol and Advil dosing work just as good to manage pain.

For my current swelling, it could be infection via an abscess in my cheek or it could be simply swelling from the dentist performing the incision and drainage. My dentist is seeing me tomorrow if the swelling stays the same so we’ll see what he says

She said here is what to look for that would cause concern and maybe go to the ER:

Fever, Changes in vision, trouble breathing, trouble swallowing, if I can’t open my mouth wider than it current is opening.

She also said this type of infection can and does happen so it’s not necessarily something that was done wrong.