A double-blind, split-mouth, randomized clinical trial published in the International Journal of Dentistry depicted that the use of oral vitamin C 600 mg/day over three doses for ten days after tooth extraction improves extraction wound healing by decreasing mesiodistal extraction wound and minimizing postoperative pain. Researchers aimed to assess the efficacy of different oral vitamin C doses on tooth extraction wound healing.

Overall, 45 people who were scheduled to undergo symmetric bilateral noninfected premolar extraction were randomized into three arms (14 people in each arm): (i) P/600:  placebo vs. 600 mg vitamin C/day, (ii)  P/1,500: placebo vs. 1,500 mg vitamin C/day, and (iii) 600/1,500: 600 mg vitamin C/day vs. 1,500 mg vitamin C/day. The recruited subjects were given placebo or/and vitamin C 3 times a day for ten days following each tooth extraction. Evaluation of extraction wound size (primary endpoint) and pain score (secondary endpoint) was done.

On days 0, 7, and 21, the wound assessment was carried out. Utilizing the same protocol, tooth extraction on the other side was done. Recording of pain scores was done on the first three days following the extraction. When assessing percentage decrease in extraction wound size between  extraction sites, the P/600 arm exhibited a substantially higher decrease in mesio-distal wound size in comparison with placebo arm between day 0 and day 7, as shown in Table 1:

On days 1-3, the pain scores of teeth receiving 600 mg/day of vitamin C were considerably reduced in comparison with the placebo side. Thus, taking oral vitamin C (200 mg three times per day) is beneficial to minimize postoperative pain and promote dental extraction wound healing in mesio-distal dimension.