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general vs. local anesthesia

G

Guest

Former Member
Hi!
I am hoping someone could give me advice. Recently, I was supposed to get my wisdom teeth out. I was sitting in the chair and they had the sticky heart monitor things stuck on my arm and my ankle and everything was set. Unfortunately, that was when I realized that I couldn't have general anesthetic; it had to be local, or I wouldn't have the operation. I couldn't take going to sleep and then waking up and having things be different and not knowing exactly what happened. I couldn't take not being in control and not knowing about and remembering everything that happens to me. However, the person taking the wisdom teeth out refuses to use local anesthetic. I guess this makes sense in a way; my wisdom teeth are impacted in the bone, and he has to cut into my jaw bone and break up the teeth with a drill and pull the roots down. How does local anesthetic work, does it not numb the bone or something? What exactly does it do? I suggested that, if he couldn't do this operation under local anesthetic, that maybe he could take out my back molars in order to make room for my wisdom teeth, so all my teeth won't get pushed to the front; it doesn't matter to me too much if I lose those teeth, and I get the feeling that it'd be easy to remove regular teeth under local anesthetic. He said he would not do it, that it wasn't proper treatment for my condition and therefore was unethical. So, alright. Can you think of anything else I could do? What are some good resources which could tell me about anesthetic and wisdom teeth in general? I am going back in a week or so for another consultation, and I want to be informed as to what my other options might be, so I can discuss them with him. Also, if I were to remove my back molars with pliars, if my dentist is unwilling to remove them and this seems to be the only option, how would I prevent infection, and how much would it bleed and what could I do about the bleeding?
Thanks for any help you can give! :)
 
This is really impossible to answer as an outsider, you need to discuss this with the dentist.

Personally I much prefer to work with a conscious patient rather than an unconscious one so I'm not sure what your dentist's reasoning is here, but I'd be interested to hear what it is after you speak to them.

The only thing I can think of from here is that the dentist wants to do all 4 wizzies at once and you can't really do that with local anaesthetic, the whole bottom jaw and tongue would be numb for about 4 hrs, with obvious risks of damage from biting yourself...
 
Hi Gordon!
Thanks for your reply! I am going to see my dentist again on Monday to talk things over with him again, so I guess I'll find out what's going on then... Anyway, something will work out.
Robin
 
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