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phobic, avoided work for years, sedation and extractions

E

essgee

Junior member
Joined
Dec 4, 2017
Messages
3
Hey all,

Thought I'd share my experience here in case it resonates wirh someone and helps even a little.

When i was younger i had surgery to fix a minor underbite. I had braces for about 5 years at the same time as well. Needless to say at that point i developed an aversion to people messing around in my mouth.

I avoided the dentist for years, which of course snowballed. When i finally went, i had lots of not fun work to do.

Fast forward to a few years ago and i developed random palpitation episodes, which compounded my anxiety. I was afraid of the novicaine causing more palps, etc.

A friend had a full set of extractions done and had a good experience so i went to his dentist. I have a toorh that needed a crown put on , and i hadnt done it due to expense. Needless to say it turned into half a tooth with a giant open cavity in it and today, it had to come out.

Extraction was my ultimate dental fear. The worst of the worst. There really wasnt a choice. A family members last heart attack was caused by a bad tooth. The dentist decided due to my anxiety that iv sedation was the best option. Since it was scheduled, i made myself sick stressing out about it.

For those of you worried about sedation: take a deep breath. It was easy. It was a little scary being surrounded by people strapping lines and stuff to me and i wasnt super excited about the change in the inhaled medication making me alittle fuzzy but thats the last thing i remember, and then i was on my way home and it was done. I'll have to update you on the recovery process as it happens (im about 3 hours in, did the first gauze switch, no real complaints so far, keep your fingers crossed)
 
update on the healing: so far so good. mininal pain ( I wouldn't even really say pain, more like discomfort ) that I was able to remedy with one 200 mg ibuprofen. still on antibiotics and saline rinses, tomorrow will be week 2 and I'll start chlorhex rinse. able to eat most normal foods (carefully) and avoiding hard crumbly stuff.

your recovery may vary but this has been far from the nightmare stories I found.
 
Thank you for sharing your experience - I may be facing extraction soon and it's setting off my anxiety big time. I will look into sedation to try and calm my nerves.
 

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