D
Dmeech
Junior member
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2010
- Messages
- 1
Hi Everyone,
This is my first post here, but I've been browsing this forum for 3 days before my wisdom teeth extraction as I was experiencing severe anxiety.
How it all began..
When I was in 6th grade I got braces to straighten my teeth. 2 yrs later I had a perfect set of pearly whites which I was proud of. Little did I know that my wisdom teeth were growing in sideways and were pushing my teeth together. I am now 25 and my perfect pearly whites have started to overlap in the front due to crowding. So I decided to go get them checked out, see if this is something Invisalign could fix. After visiting the dentist, turned out that my teeth could be straightened back with invisalign in 6 months, BUT I would have to have my wisdom teeth removed to make room (and avoid future crowding) and to prevent future infection as all 4 were horizontally impacted.
In I went for the initial full mouth X-Ray, and what do you know... all 4 wisdom teeth were in the bone, growing in sideways, were extremely close to nerves in the jaw and my sinuses... they had to go. I immediately made an appointment with on Oral surgeon who happened to work in the same office. At the consultation, the surgeon explained all the risk of the surgery, how the teeth were close to the bone, how I could have numbness in my tongue, chin, teeth etc. That part did not worry me, as the oral surgeon was extremely knowledgeable and has been doing this since 1993. What worried me was the procedure - would I be awake? Would I feel pain? I chose IV Sedation and made my appointment 3 months ahead of time and forgot about it...
1 Week to go.
This is when I started freaking out about the surgery. I started browsing all sites, watching all youtube videos, reading all articles. What scared me the most about the whole thing was the IV Sedation. That fear of the Unknown kicked in pretty hard for me. I got progressively more depress and anxious as the day drew closer. I spent most of my work days reading peoples experiences about going under and coming out sedation. My anxiety was so high that I was like a walking zombie. But this was something that I had to do so I forced myself to soldier on.
The Day of surgery.
I was freaking out. I was the first appointment of the day and got there 40 min before the office opened so I could talk to the doc. I hung around outside till 8:45 when the first person showed up and opened the main door. I went in, checked in and sat down in the waiting room to wait for the doc to get there. Those 15 min that I waited must have been the most anxious minutes of my life so far. I was mentally freaking out and didnt know what to do or how to calm myself.
The doc strolled in 5 min before my surgery and went in to get ready for the procedure. At 9am an assistant came out and brought me in to the dentist chair. My heart was racing! I walked past all the tools, but chose not to look at them and freak myself out even further. I sat down, asked the doc for a quick run through of what he was going to do. He showed my xray and calmly explain the procedure, told me it was nothing to worry about and that he's done 1000s of these before. His calmness defenitely reassured me about the surgery, but I was still freaking about one other thing...the IV Sedation. I was borderline ready to cancel the IV Sedation and just do LA or NOx but the doc reassured me that I would regret not doing IV Sedation (twilight sleep) and it would not be pleasant experience for me to get 4 bony impacted teeth out and be aware of what was going on. I said "ok" and he hooked me up to the hear rate monitor.
My heart was racing! Not once did the monitor drop below 120 bpm (my normal resting rate is 75), my blood pressure was pretty high too - all signs of deep anxiety. The doc kept telling me to relax.. but how could I? I was in the dentist chair with a heart monitor hooked up, staring at the big bag of Saline solution above my head.... I was freaking out! The doc said "Let's try something" he gave me pure oxygen to try to calm me down... after 30 seconds of breathing it, my heart rate was still high. He then proceeded to switch my oxygen tube to a NOx tube and cranked it up.....
I started taking deep breaths of the NOx, it smelled a tiny bit like nail polish but defenently breathable. The first thing I noticed was that my fingers and tows started to go slightly numb. I started feeling extremely relaxed. I was completely aware of what was going on around only now I was super relaxed, all the tension in my muscles went away.. my heart rate finaly started dropping to a normal level. It was the coolest feeling in the world. The feeling was similar to coming out of a 2 hour full body massage where you are so relaxed, that you just want to lay there and savor it for a little bit. The doc started asking me random questions about my job as he proceeded to put the IV in. By then I was so relaxed and felt very chatty... I did feel the IV go in, but I did not care at the moment thanks to the NOx. Then I saw the doc turn around and squeeze something. This did not bother me, as I was feeling pretty chill at the moment. Slowly, I started feeling more and more drowsy. I literally felt like going to sleep. There was no instant black out, no slow fading, no burning in veins, no nothing. Just deep relaxation and drifting off into sleep. Felt exactly like it does after you a huge meal (think thanksgiving) and you go off to take a little cat nap. I knew that it was the sedation, and did not fight it. Just closed my eye and before I knew it I was asleep.
The next thing I remember is getting up from the chair and shaking the docs and all the assitant's hands. It literally felt like seconds past from the time I fell asleep to the time I woke up. I felt very rested and not goggy at all. My fiance was telling me that when I woke up, I kept asking the doctor to give me more of the sedation and that I wanted to do it again!! There was ZERO pain, and I didn't really notice that my mouth was numb until I got home. I felt great and really happy on the inside. The feeling is very similar to being extremely happily drunk, minus the spinning room and the hangover. I was completely clear headed but felt extreme happiness. I remember thinking "so this is why people take Valium recreactionaly, I feel FANTASTIC!!!" A permanent smile was stuck on my face.
I remember trying to skip back to the parking lot to show my mom and fiancé that I was fine and did not need them to help me walk. From there on, I can recall everything. The ride home was fun, as I kept goofing off the whole way home. When I got home, I threw in the nextflix DVD into my PS3, loaded up a movie and ate some Jello. Very Relaxed.
Conclusion
IV Sedation is the best thing thats ever happened to dentistry!!!!! I finally get what everyone was talking about!!!! Thanks to the sedation, the whole surgery was a VERY VERY VERY pleasant experience - why? - because I didn't even notice it happened!!!! If you are about to go under IV Sedation, do not be afraid! There is NOTHING to fear!
Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences, they definitely calmed my nerves a bit before the surgery!!!!!
This is my first post here, but I've been browsing this forum for 3 days before my wisdom teeth extraction as I was experiencing severe anxiety.
How it all began..
When I was in 6th grade I got braces to straighten my teeth. 2 yrs later I had a perfect set of pearly whites which I was proud of. Little did I know that my wisdom teeth were growing in sideways and were pushing my teeth together. I am now 25 and my perfect pearly whites have started to overlap in the front due to crowding. So I decided to go get them checked out, see if this is something Invisalign could fix. After visiting the dentist, turned out that my teeth could be straightened back with invisalign in 6 months, BUT I would have to have my wisdom teeth removed to make room (and avoid future crowding) and to prevent future infection as all 4 were horizontally impacted.
In I went for the initial full mouth X-Ray, and what do you know... all 4 wisdom teeth were in the bone, growing in sideways, were extremely close to nerves in the jaw and my sinuses... they had to go. I immediately made an appointment with on Oral surgeon who happened to work in the same office. At the consultation, the surgeon explained all the risk of the surgery, how the teeth were close to the bone, how I could have numbness in my tongue, chin, teeth etc. That part did not worry me, as the oral surgeon was extremely knowledgeable and has been doing this since 1993. What worried me was the procedure - would I be awake? Would I feel pain? I chose IV Sedation and made my appointment 3 months ahead of time and forgot about it...
1 Week to go.
This is when I started freaking out about the surgery. I started browsing all sites, watching all youtube videos, reading all articles. What scared me the most about the whole thing was the IV Sedation. That fear of the Unknown kicked in pretty hard for me. I got progressively more depress and anxious as the day drew closer. I spent most of my work days reading peoples experiences about going under and coming out sedation. My anxiety was so high that I was like a walking zombie. But this was something that I had to do so I forced myself to soldier on.
The Day of surgery.
I was freaking out. I was the first appointment of the day and got there 40 min before the office opened so I could talk to the doc. I hung around outside till 8:45 when the first person showed up and opened the main door. I went in, checked in and sat down in the waiting room to wait for the doc to get there. Those 15 min that I waited must have been the most anxious minutes of my life so far. I was mentally freaking out and didnt know what to do or how to calm myself.
The doc strolled in 5 min before my surgery and went in to get ready for the procedure. At 9am an assistant came out and brought me in to the dentist chair. My heart was racing! I walked past all the tools, but chose not to look at them and freak myself out even further. I sat down, asked the doc for a quick run through of what he was going to do. He showed my xray and calmly explain the procedure, told me it was nothing to worry about and that he's done 1000s of these before. His calmness defenitely reassured me about the surgery, but I was still freaking about one other thing...the IV Sedation. I was borderline ready to cancel the IV Sedation and just do LA or NOx but the doc reassured me that I would regret not doing IV Sedation (twilight sleep) and it would not be pleasant experience for me to get 4 bony impacted teeth out and be aware of what was going on. I said "ok" and he hooked me up to the hear rate monitor.
My heart was racing! Not once did the monitor drop below 120 bpm (my normal resting rate is 75), my blood pressure was pretty high too - all signs of deep anxiety. The doc kept telling me to relax.. but how could I? I was in the dentist chair with a heart monitor hooked up, staring at the big bag of Saline solution above my head.... I was freaking out! The doc said "Let's try something" he gave me pure oxygen to try to calm me down... after 30 seconds of breathing it, my heart rate was still high. He then proceeded to switch my oxygen tube to a NOx tube and cranked it up.....
I started taking deep breaths of the NOx, it smelled a tiny bit like nail polish but defenently breathable. The first thing I noticed was that my fingers and tows started to go slightly numb. I started feeling extremely relaxed. I was completely aware of what was going on around only now I was super relaxed, all the tension in my muscles went away.. my heart rate finaly started dropping to a normal level. It was the coolest feeling in the world. The feeling was similar to coming out of a 2 hour full body massage where you are so relaxed, that you just want to lay there and savor it for a little bit. The doc started asking me random questions about my job as he proceeded to put the IV in. By then I was so relaxed and felt very chatty... I did feel the IV go in, but I did not care at the moment thanks to the NOx. Then I saw the doc turn around and squeeze something. This did not bother me, as I was feeling pretty chill at the moment. Slowly, I started feeling more and more drowsy. I literally felt like going to sleep. There was no instant black out, no slow fading, no burning in veins, no nothing. Just deep relaxation and drifting off into sleep. Felt exactly like it does after you a huge meal (think thanksgiving) and you go off to take a little cat nap. I knew that it was the sedation, and did not fight it. Just closed my eye and before I knew it I was asleep.
The next thing I remember is getting up from the chair and shaking the docs and all the assitant's hands. It literally felt like seconds past from the time I fell asleep to the time I woke up. I felt very rested and not goggy at all. My fiance was telling me that when I woke up, I kept asking the doctor to give me more of the sedation and that I wanted to do it again!! There was ZERO pain, and I didn't really notice that my mouth was numb until I got home. I felt great and really happy on the inside. The feeling is very similar to being extremely happily drunk, minus the spinning room and the hangover. I was completely clear headed but felt extreme happiness. I remember thinking "so this is why people take Valium recreactionaly, I feel FANTASTIC!!!" A permanent smile was stuck on my face.
I remember trying to skip back to the parking lot to show my mom and fiancé that I was fine and did not need them to help me walk. From there on, I can recall everything. The ride home was fun, as I kept goofing off the whole way home. When I got home, I threw in the nextflix DVD into my PS3, loaded up a movie and ate some Jello. Very Relaxed. Conclusion
IV Sedation is the best thing thats ever happened to dentistry!!!!! I finally get what everyone was talking about!!!! Thanks to the sedation, the whole surgery was a VERY VERY VERY pleasant experience - why? - because I didn't even notice it happened!!!! If you are about to go under IV Sedation, do not be afraid! There is NOTHING to fear!
Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences, they definitely calmed my nerves a bit before the surgery!!!!!
