Well... I did it. IV sedation is some gooood stuff! Here's my story of 1 impacted lower wisdom tooth under the gum removed under IV sedation in the UK.
I arrived on time for my appointment but was kept waiting for 50 minutes, which didn't exactly help with my anxiety. When I got into the chair they took my blood pressure and it was sky high - the surgeon seemed taken aback. They then placed a pulse monitor clip on one of my fingers and I could hear my pulse beeping away. Anyway, i tried to relax as they then tried to find a vein. Unfortunately they couldn't get one in my hand so had to go for the inside of my elbow instead and they found a vein there really quickly. I was looking the opposite way with my eyes closed. I'm not afraid of needles but don't really like watching and was trying to relax by closing my eyes. However, the surgeon asked me to open my eyes and look straight up at the ceiling. She said that looking into the eyes is one of the measures she uses to judge how sedated a patient is. After that, she began to administer the midazolam into the cannula on my arm. By the way, I had the protective glasses on - there was no mention of blindfolds like I've read elsewhere on this forum.
She said to me at this point that sedation would be a gradual process. A few seconds passed and she asked how I felt. At that point I felt no effects and I replied that I felt fine. That is my last memory of before the operation. There was no feeling drowsy, no feeling sleepy, no drifting off, nothing.
The next thing I remember was hearing the surgeon say 'I'm just putting the stitches in now' and then I remember standing up and getting out of the chair. I remember nothing at all of the LA being injected or the tooth coming out or the stitches. I was slightly unsteady on my feet but ok to walk. The assistant told me that they'd had to break the tooth into several pieces to get it out, and that it had been a bit tricky so I should expect a lot of swelling.
I was still bleeding and biting down on some gauze and after a few minutes of sitting down they sent me on my way with my escort. At this point I was ecstatic that it was over and that my mind was ok from the sedation.
Unfortunately, the bleeding didn't stop and hours later I was panicing as the LA wore off and I was in pain, even though I'd taken the painkillers they'd prescribed. To make matters worse, one of the stitches fell out. i think this was due to it not being stitched in very well and all of the biting down on gauze that I'd been doing to try and stop the bleeding. I went to bed and luckily most of the bleeding stopped overnight though I still had a little the next day.
I went back and had it checked the next day and the surgeon said there was no need to put the stitch back in as it had started to heal over. So I now have just 1 stitch in. The swelling came up really big on days 2 and 3 and is now starting to subside (day 5). I'm still on a diet of soft foods as I can't chew much without pain/discomfort. What feels weird is that my 'bite' seems to be a bit different, like the molar next to the removed tooth has moved a bit and isn't quite making the correct contact with the tooth above but I guess I'll just wait till it's fully healed and see what its like then.
