In clinical work, after extracting a tooth, patients often use sutures to close the wound, and many patients will ask with a slightly intimidated and questioning tone, “Doctor, do you need sutures after extracting a tooth? Does it hurt?” Some uninformed patients may think that the doctor made a mistake during the extraction process before stitching themselves up, thinking that a medical accident has occurred, leaving a psychological shadow that lingers and asking around. Putting it in perspective, stitches, due to lack of common sense, sounds like a pretty scary thing to many people, and as the saying goes, it’s understandable that it’s like a mountain in between, even more so in this particular area of medicine. But in fact, dentists can tell you that stitching of the wound after extraction is very common and is a treatment to protect the wound, which can effectively reduce a variety of complications after extraction, such as bleeding, pain, infection, etc., and the process is painless. The following is a more in-depth explanation of why stitches are needed in some cases after tooth extraction. Since part of the tooth grows inside the bone, after the extraction, a “hole” is left in the alveolar bone, and different teeth in different locations and sizes are extracted leaving different “holes”. God created man with a very strong ability to repair himself, and from the moment the “hole” appears, he starts the repair process, which is complex and is a miraculous ability given to each individual by the Creator. First, it forms a blood clot through bleeding to temporarily fill the hole, then the blood clot begins to mechanize and various mesh structures begin to intertwine to protect the wound, gradually making the wound complete ossification, and finally filling the “hole” completely, completing self-repair. If you follow my last article on science, you may remember the analogy that when the tooth is opened, it needs to be repaired, and the process of repair may be invaded by foreign enemies, so this process is not only the process of self-repair, but also the process of protecting other parts of the body from being affected. I simply summarize the changes of the blood clots in this hole into three processes: liquid – semi-solid – solid. This process cannot be interrupted or delayed, otherwise the process will become long and painful, and once interrupted, it must be started from the beginning. Making a stable transition from liquid to semi-solid generally takes 3 – 7 days, and this process is the most susceptible to outside interference. Because of this, in some extraction sockets where the incision is relatively large and the surrounding structure is lax, and where the clot cannot be easily stabilized, the surgeon will choose stitches – This is because in some cases where the wound is large, the surrounding structures are loose and the clot cannot be easily stabilized, the doctor will choose stitches – to artificially establish a good transitional environment so that the process can be transitioned faster and better. To put it bluntly, many of the adverse reactions after tooth extraction are due to the fact that this process is not well transitioned. Therefore, stitching of extraction sockets, most commonly used for extraction of interrupted teeth, extraction of complex molars, and extraction of multiple teeth in succession, can effectively reduce various possible complications after extraction and is a very beneficial operation for the patient, and the fear of medical errors is completely superfluous.