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Scared of Getting Teeth Pulled

J

Jessa

Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2010
Messages
21
I'm 16 and getting 4 wisdom teeth pulled under general anesthesia. I've never been under before and never had oral surgery at the hospital. Normally, I'm not afraid of dentists and actually enjoy visiting my dentist's office. However, I'm very nervous and the surgeon's office said if I show up at the hospital for my appointment and my heart is racing because I'm nervous than I won't be able to get the procedure done on that day. How can I make my heart NOT race when go in for my surgery?

Please, if you have any "success stories" about getting teeth pulled under general anesthesia share them here! I'm absolutely scared of getting put under and am also nervous about the recovery time afterwards because I heard it's quite rough.

Thanks in advance!
 
Hi Jessa

Welcome to the forum :welcome:

I understand your concerns. This procedure is very routine and easy. You will not even know it happened. Thousands of these are done everyday. You will be in good hands.

Racing heart is part of a fear response. One of the best ways to deal with it is to practice diaphragmatic breathing. This type of breathing activates your natural relaxation system. Here is a quick method.

1. Sit down with feet flat on floor and loosen any tight clothing
2. Close your eyes and take a long slow deep breath in through
the nose to a slow count of "5"
3. Hold the breath for a second or two
4. Slowly exhale out the mouth to a count of "7"
5. Repeat. In a few minutes the anxiety will diminish.

Do this exercise 3 times per day for about 5 minutes per session.

Healing from wisdom tooth removal is not difficult. You will be a bit sore and need to eat softer foods for a few days. Ibuprofen will help and ice packs are good for the first couple of days. You will do great.

Blessings :)
 
Thanks for the welcome to the forum! Your tips will come in handy, I'm sure! Like I mentioned before, I'm afraid of going under so I did a new post under the "Support" category!

Thanks again for replying to this post!
 
Hi Jessa

i completely sympathise with how you are feeling,similar i can go to the dentist but the thought of extraction fills me with dread,i needed an impacted lower wisdom tooth removing as it had caused decay in the one adjacent to it which broke around xmas time.My dentist said she could remove broken one but the wisdom tooth was a hospital procedure.

I told her no way could i have extraction the thought made me feel sick and she said i could have both out under general at the hospital as i couldnt go through the procedure in the surgery.

Every day i waited with dread for my appointment as i hate needles,never been in hospital before or had a general anaesthetic and was convincing myself i would die.

I had my surgery yesterday!!! i felt so sick and nauseous right up to getting there and thought about backing out so many times,but thought i have to face this,and this time tommorrow it will all be over.

it went brilliantly,now i dont know why i was so worried all in all i had 4 teeth removed lower left 7 and 8 upper left 8 and 5,surgeon told me it took about a minute to remove each tooth and i was back in recovery,telling them to leave me alone i was still sunbathing on the beach lol ;D

i had no bleeding at all,they put stitches in my gums,i just got the odd strange taste in my mouth but was not as bad as id expected at all,and i had none of that gauze stuff which i was so glad of.It took me a little while for the anaesthetic to wear off,i just wanted to sleep and felt woozy everytime i tried to get up,but i lived to tell the tale i have had no pain whatsoever,just a bit of a stiff jaw but apart from that nothing.

All these years id been dreading extractions due to a bad experience as a kid but i think my worrying and fretting all these months was far worse than the procedure.and im sure you will be feeling exactly the same once you are out the other side

Very good luck to you all will go fine,if i can do it,anyone can ,let me know how it goes xx
 
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