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Help -how long before IV sedation wears off?

B

big brummie

Junior member
Joined
Jun 8, 2009
Messages
1
Today I went to the local dental hospital to have a tooth extracted using IV conscious sedation. When I got there I was keeping fairly controlled (just!) and then a nurse went through some questions with me. All was OK until he started to ask about what would happen after the extraction was done. I said my partner would take me home by taxi and that he would be with me apart for a short time (20 mins max) while he went to pick our 10 year old son up from school.At this point he said he would have to talk to the dentist.

Well, then I was called into the consulting room and asked the same questions again - this time by the dentist. She then said that if I could not guarantee that my partner would be giving me his complete and undivided attention at home she would be unable to use the IV sedation.

By this time my anxiety levels were hitting the roof,I was getting angry and the dentist would not budge(but neither could she explain why the hospital would discharge me if I actually needed such intense monitoring) To cut a long story short I rearranged my appointment for another time - which as it will hit school holiday time will present us both with greater -not fewer - problems.

And after all this I feel that I need to know why such conditions were being imposed - what dangers have Inot been told about? What is the recovery time after this procedure? Can anyone out there explain this to me?

Thanks in anticipation.....
 
You were too honest in your answers...just like me...can't seem to help myself ;). I suppose the only solution having already been so honest would have been to say a neighbour would come in briefly while child collected from school.
You are supposed to have someone with you afterwards..just in case....(20 mins would have been ok no doubt) since they are powerful drugs and you could I suppose take it upon yourself to do sth stupid (like drive a car) being still under the influence.....just like too much alcohol really...:cheers: :sleepyjuice: not that I'd know much about that thesedays :).
 
The IV drugs take about 12-24 hrs to fully wear off. During that time your short term memory can be very unreliable, so you could switch on the cooker or an iron or something and forget you'd done it, with potentially unfortunate consequences.

Thank all those nice "no win no fee" lawyers you see on the TV these days, unfortunately thanks to this compensation culture, we've not got much choice but to make sure "the rules" are followed to the letter.

I don't think lying to the clinic staff is a terribly sensible idea either Brit :)
 
I don't think lying to the clinic staff is a terribly sensible idea either Brit :)

You are absolutely right of course, it is not sensible to lie to those responsible for providing your medical care. However their approach did sound rather inflexible....I may not have worded it very well but what I really meant to imply was that surely there was some better arrangement to get round the matter than cancel an (NHS?) i/v sedation and put this poster through the stress of pre-appointment nerves once again.

I well understand that there is a tendency for us to live in fractured communities with few neighbours around during the day (I could have got a neighbour in this situation though most days) but surely with the aid of a mobile phone, another parent could have dropped the child home, or a teacher could have placed them in a taxi...some better solution than cancelling ONCE the dentist had explained the actual problem (which poster said they did not)...shouldn't pre-operative instructions/info make the risks a bit clearer..not just you must have someone with you...but why exactly.

If not sleeping the drugs off, presumably she could have gone along too to pick up child?

An incompetent EU country hospital let my OH walk home alone after an i/v sedation despite having told me they'd phone for me to collect him...I had visions of him going under buses etc etc ...so yes the point you make is a responsible one.
 
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