The day draws closer and I'm not happy about it.

So here I am the typical dental phobic who has neglected his teeth for far too long. I managed to make it through the first appointment and now this Thursday the 25th at 7am it’s my turn to do a four hour stay in the house of horror. Three wisdoms out, one other broken tooth out, a root canal, prep for three crowns and a few fillings.


Not much sleep for the last few nights and getting worse. It’s getting harder to make it through a day at work and keep my concentration up. I’m constantly thinking about it an my anxiety level is rising by the day.

At this point it’s even making me mad. I’m so tired of this controlling me and ruining my life. I hate this and just want it to be over.


I guess fortunately I’m getting IV Sedation and I’m told that will help. I hope so. Wonder if I can get it started today and wakeup sometime Thursday when it’s over?


I don’t know what to think about the whole IV thing. I’m told I will be awake but then I really won’t be. I’m told I can still answer questions but won’t know what’s going on. I’m told the four hours will pass very quickly… even in an instant but yet I’m still awake. I’m told I won’t remember anything but yet I will be awake. I’m told I can still feel pain but won’t care and won’t remember it.

I’m so gripped with fear I can hardly get anything accomplished at work. Being a Christian I’m hoping for the second coming sometime before Thursday.

hey
wow you really are going for it all in one go but i suppose by friday it will all be over for you and thats really great!!!!
During the daytime i found it was better to keep as busy as possible i know that sounds obvious but everytime i sat down it gave me more time to dwell so i did anything and everything to keep moving !!!!
Nighttime is always hardest you need to sleep but cant and thats horrible but you dont have too much longer to wait now if yr really finding it too hard have you thought about seeing yr gp he might be able to help my mum is having a tooth out wednesday shes on diazepam ready she sleeps much better and on the day she will take 2 to keep calm!!!!
let us know how it goes
loved the part about the second coming if yr lucky it will happen wednesday!!!!
all the best
emma

lowandslow said:

I don’t know what to think about the whole IV thing.
I’m told I will be awake but then I really won’t be.
I’m told I can still answer questions but won’t know what’s going on.
I’m told the four hours will pass very quickly… even in an instant but yet I’m still awake.
I’m told I won’t remember anything but yet I will be awake.
I’m told I can still feel pain but won’t care and won’t remember it.

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Hi Lowandslow
Are you absolutely sure i/v sedation is how you wish to deal with your fear? It's your first post so we don't know your dental experience history to be able to comment on what has worked for people with similar histories.
I suppose for wisdom teeth especially if impacted, it makes sense, even for a non-phobic (had mine out under General Anaesthetic which was great) but any other stuff I would just do with local anaesthetic, TLC and a kind competent dentist.
Obviously with local anaesthetic alone, you would be looking at several appointments as it wouldn't be feasible to do it all in one go.
I have never had i/v sedation for anything but I have read countless positive accounts of it on here and only a couple of not so positive ones. There's more general information here:
Dental Sedation
IV Sedation

You do still need to be numbed for treatment with i/v sedation so I would question the dentist a bit more closely about saying you 'will be able to feel pain but won't care or remember'. The other descriptions match what countless others say.
I personally would want reassurance that the dentist didn't mean that you would be in pain during treatment but not remember it - which I doubt they did but it just came over like that as a bit of a red flag for an incompetent approach.
In a nutshell i/v sedation does not remove the need for the dentist to be someone you trust to give you comfortable care. You are supposed to be kept in a painfree state with local anaesthetic, during the actual treatment regardless of the fact that you may recall nothing afterwards because some sedation drugs have an amnesiac effect.

I/V sedation has lots of loyal fans among posters on this site so I'm sure they will be along shortly. I'm sure you will do fine but don't forget you are paying for the treatment so you have the right to ask questions and gain any reassurance you require from your dentist. Best wishes for Thursday.

That sounds fine then. It's quite common for dental phobics to say they'd rather have open heart surgery (at least you'd be under a general anaesthetic!) or for women to say they'd rather give birth than have a tooth out lol. In reality though open heart surgery and giving birth are infinitely more fraught with unknown and serious consequences than dental treatment.

If you have had good = painless and bad = painful dental experiences in the past, the good news is that the comfort level is mainly a function of the actual dentist's techniques, especially where delivery of LA is concerned..to be comfortable it helps to apply numbing gel first though not essential and to inject very slowly the opposite of what you might expect.... see this page: Painful injections and Needle Phobia it sounds like you may well be able to stay with this guy for regular care. Even if infection causes a problem with numbing (doesn't always), there are ways and means of dealing with this as painlessly as possible such as sedation and advanced local aneasthetic techniques, but not all dentists are versed in them or have the equipment..also if infection is present antibiotics can usually be taken first.

It is perfectly possible that i/v sedation would relax you enough to not care about discomfort from shots....so I think you will be ok with it...if you are in the USA rather than UK they tend to do i/v sedation to a deeper level sometimes so that could also work in your favour. Many people report back that they went out like a light and then woke up after a couple of minutes when in reality they were awake and it took two hours..so it does work really well most of the time.
It's a good choice if you just want to get lots done in one go and tackle your fear later with the easier stuff such as check-ups in maintenance mode.
Do you think your 'dental reluctance' might go back to childhood experiences maybe?
By the way it is completely normal to worry excesssively prior to i/v sedation appointments..loads of posters on here have done the same and come out smiling the next day. Try to relax though, it sounds like you are in good hands.

Well, hopefully it will go smoothly. I'm going to tell the dentist if that IV has a setting one to ten I want that baby on ten.

This is the place I'm going.


If I can make it through this without a horrible experience I may do much better in the future.. I hope. Right now I'm just sick of the whole thing and I'm tired of thinking about it.

Not sure when my fear started. I think I've always been afraid of them.

Thanks for all your comments. I'll check back in after black Thursday.

Looks like a nice practice...good website..loads of comfort messages and many more testimonials from phobics than you usually get on similar websites.
I'm fairly sure it won't be a horrible experience or Black Thursday at all You'll probably be able to add it to our Dentist Finder. Thanks for sharing the details.

Hello lowandslow:

Good job moving forward to solve this challenge. Dentistry is not the trip to the house of horrors it was in the past. The anxiety you are experiencing is causing these feelings. Anxiety paints the worst picture possible.

IV sedation is a great choice. The combination of medications blocks the response of the pain receptors. It also gives you amnesia for the event. Getting LA without sedation is painless due to better technology and techniques. The medications in the IV sedation improve the effectiveness of the LA. You will not be subjected to pain.

If the anxiety is really getting to you ring the dentist and ask for an anti-anxiety medication like Ativan, Restoril or Valium. These will calm you down and allow you to get a good nights sleep before the appointment. These are very common medications and are routinely prescribed for acute anxiety, so do not feel weird asking for them.

You will do great at your appointment.

Blessings and peace to you.

Thanks for your encouragement.

Tomorrow at 7am is D-Day for me. My anxiety level is off the charts so I can’t imagine how tomorrow morning is going to be. Good thing my wife is taking me or I might just turn the car around and head for Mexico never to be herd from again. Just kidding of course.
My only comfort is that tomorrow by noon the dark cloud will be lifted.

You'll be fine tomorrow. I'm thinking that it's probably far better to have the work done where you are than to find yourself in a position of having to get it done in an emergency while you're hiding out in Mexico.

By the way, you had mentioned above that you're not afraid of doctors or anything like that but that you're terrified of dentists. I can relate to that. Until I started my journey back to dental health, I was pretty much the same way (though, I wouldn't have been thrilled about the prospect of open heart surgery, either). As others have said, that doesn't make you weird.

There is one thing that I stress to almost everyone - communicate. Don't spend the rest of tonight thinking that you have to show up at the dentist tomorrow in "tough guy" mode. Know that if, when you go to your appointment tomorrow, you show signs of being nervous the dentist isn't going to think any less of you. As my dentist told me, they'd much rather know that you're nervous than have you try to hide it. Save the brave face for other aspects of your life. And, hey, imagine, after tomorrow your brave face will have a healthier mouth.

Most importantly, know that we're thinking of you and we're offering you our support. You are by no means alone. We're looking forward to seeing you back here and watching your happy dance.

Good luck if you aren't there yet.... or how did it go, if you are now back?

The Dentist and I exchanged a couple emails today. Thought I'd share what he said.

"Thanks for emailing me about your visit tomorrow. I promise we will take good care of you; you will not have any pain, and you probably won't even remember being here. I will keep you well-sedated and safe. My goal is to take such good care of you that you will want to refer others to us. See you in the morning."

You can't hope for a better reply than that...that's really cool he obviously knows what he is doing . It will be fine.

His reply did make me feel a bit better and I am pleased that he took a few minutes to reply. I appreciated that.

I'll check back tomorrow evening after the fun.

May the force me with me.

Lowandslow, best of luck tomorrow! Aw, that was so very sweet and nice of your dentist to send you. Sounds like you have a "winner!" I look forward to reading your success story very soon.

Mona

Well, you can add Beck Dental of Columbia, TN to your list of recommended dentists.

I'm a bit sore of course but I had absolutely no pain or discomfort start to finish and Dr. Beck and his staff went over an above the call of duty to make sure I was absolutely comfortable and safe.

Once they had the IV in they put on the nitrous mask and Dr. Beck started to tell me a story which all of a sudden I had a rather hard time following when the happy gas kicked in.

Once they had the IV cranked up he started with the injections which I do remember a little but none of which hurt at all. There's a first! I remember them asking me a few questions along the way but for the most part the almost 4 hours seemed like about 5 minutes to me.

The black dental cloud in my life has lifted. Not to say I'm totally over my fear but now I know I can move forward with out it ruining my life.

Interested in IV sedation?. Don't hesitate to try it. IV is my new best friend.

Thanks to all here for your kind words of encouragement!!

lowandslow said:

Well, you can add Beck Dental of Columbia, TN to your list of recommended dentists.

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CongratulationsWell done to you Will add them if you have not already done so .

What a wonderful dentist you have! Yes, definitely one to add to the list! And I LOVE IV Anethesia!! It feels SOOOOO GOOD!!! They should bottle the stuff so you can just drink it! LOL I had it twice for Groin Surgery, and it was heaven! Glad you made it through!!!! Good For YOU! And kudos to your dentist! He sounds like a gem!