You won’t feel a thing
I had to get a root canal yesterday. I know what you’re thinking — “Lucky!”
I know, I know. Don’t be jealous. Root canals are a special treat. For this particular dental experience, I decided to go to a dentist who specializes in sedation dentistry. It was either that or just let the tooth rot out of my head. Honestly. I can no longer bring myself to volunteer for the waking torture of dental work. Not going to do it. Please just knock me out.
I have spent an inordinate amount of time in the dentist’s chair in my life and I just can’t take it anymore. I am one of those lucky few who had at least one new cavity every single time I went to the dentist. I don’t know why. My brother and sister didn’t. I brushed my teeth just as much as they did. I’m told that I was just genetically blessed with what the dentist referred to as “bad enamel.” What are you gonna do?
As a result of this bad enamel and the ensuing cavities, I have a mouthful of porcelain crowns, which are beautiful and a huge improvement over the big silver fillings and crowns I sported well into my 20’s. I paid a small fortune for my pretty white teeth and I paid even more in time spent in open-mouthed agony while a dentist took a power drill to my mouth. During one particularly long and gruesome appointment, I had to resort to repeatedly counting from 1 to 100 to keep from having an all-out panic attack. I have dental PTSD.
God’s extra little joke on me is that I also have a terrible habit of clenching and grinding my teeth when I sleep. So, night-by-night, I systematically destroy my pretty porcelain crowns. Which brings us to the root canal that I had yesterday. And to sedation dentistry, the most wonderful invention in the world.
The dentist gave me a little white pill to take an hour before I got to the office, so by the time my mom dropped me off I was already pleasantly woozy. I didn’t know if it was just the drugs distorting my take on things, but it seemed to me that the office staff finds their doped-up patients to be amusing. The receptionist seemed to chuckle conspiratorially when she advised me to, “Sign these papers now, because you won’t know what you’re signing when you leave here.”
A short while after taking my second little white pill, I drowsily inquired if the loud noise I heard coming from the next room was snoring.
“Yes, that’s another sedation patient,” the hygienist giggled and shook her head indulgently, as if we were all just silly overgrown babies, what with our snoring and drooling. But I wasn’t offended. I was feeling no pain.
The next thing I remember was the laughing gas tube being placed over my nose and then hearing the dentist say funny things like, “Nurse, hand me a strange event.” I thought, “He didn’t really say that. You are hallucinating. That’s funny.”
I heard a lot of funny things while I drifted in my drug-induced twilight and I really wanted to remember everything so I could write about it. But when it was over and I came to, my mouth was puffy and my lips were chapped but I couldn’t remember much of anything one way or another.
But that is the point of sedation dentistry in the first place, isn’t it? Mission accomplished.
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Great article… and I agree with you 100%!
Between damage done by antibiotics to combat my bout with childhood meningitis and admittedly poor dental hygiene because of sensitivity while growing up, I hit adulthood with a smile that was less that stellar and a fear of dentists that made me tremble at the sound of a drill.
Then I discovered anesthesia.
As a broke, 19yr old E3 in the military, I paid, out of my own generous 12K per year salary, to have the dental work done off base (the military will not anesthetize you) and got it all fixed up.
What will all of those poor masochists that were drawn to dentistry do, now that they can’t practice their barbaric rites on people?
I guess they retrain as meter maids…..
You make it sound like I was cheated in my root canal experience!
I needed one back when I was an upperclassman in high school- the extreme pain I felt when swirling winds blew into my mouth tipped me off that something was amiss. But I didn’t get any of the laughing gas or happy pills… just a couple of novocaine injections to numb the pain, which did its job. I didn’t feel any pain, and I’ve subsequently told many a person that the pain and uncomfortable nature of a root canal is overrated.
But all I got for my experience was a droopy mouth upon leaving, albeit one that I was able to chomp down on pain free for a few hours.
Holy cow!! I went through ONE root canal and actually had a panic attack…turned gray, got the shakes, the whole nine yards. This is AFTER an uneventful battery of deep cleaning during the previous weeks.
Man, I’m looking for complete and utter sedation next time…and I enjoy hallucinations, too!! What a bargain.
I can totally relate to the dentist anxiety attacks!! I had braces when I was younger. One time, while getting the impressions done for the braces I started gagging and freaked out. I spent the next 10 years in mortal fear of going to the orthodontist’s office. I was so scared I delayed getting braces for a year or two.
My dentist and I take a very different approach. He almost never uses any pain medication at all, except for the most serious work. I don’t think I’ve ever used novacaine for a filling. As a result, we both know pretty much exactly what to expect. He tells me if it’s going to hurt a lot or a little and whether it will be two seconds or twenty. He always offers medication and I always decline. I think this removes the fear and helplessness of dentistry, as we’ve both agreed on the terms.