Possible root canal treatment - Terrified! (LONG)

[alicol]

Hiya,

First time on here, found this site through a link from another dentisty site.

I have just got back from the dentists after having a temproary filling fitted.  I have had a toothache for nearly 6 weeks now, noticed a big hole yesterday, hence appointment today.

Well I am that scared of the whole dental experience, I nearly walked out of the waiting rom before the dentist even called me in.

It looks very likely I will need root canal treatment.  Now I have read that with the right local anaesthetic iot should be completely painless but I'm still really scared about it and might not even go to the next appoinment.

This all stems from a bad experience when i was 18 (8 years ago).  Never had a problem with the dentist till this one time when I needed a filling.

Dentist says to me 'its only a small filling, I won't give you any anaesthetic' then proceeded to drill into my tooth, causing me huge amounts of pain, whilst I lay their sobbign and his assistant held me down on the chair.  He got so fed up with my crying, he stopped, jabbed a needle into my gum saying, 'well if you are going to behave like a little baby I shall have to give you the infection'.

This experience has stopped me going for 8 years.  

I guess what I would like now is reasurrance from anyone out there that it will all be fine.  I'd love to hear from anyone who's had root canals done as well!

Best wishes

Ali  

 

[Nora]

Re: Possible root canal treatment - Terrified! (LO

Ali, I had two root canals several years back. I'd been expecting the whole thing to be a nightmare; so many people talk about root canals as though they're the equivalent of medieval torture methods. I was amazed by how un-horrible they were. I had no pain during the procedure itself (except for the novacaine shots!), just mild discomfort when the dentist took impressions. I was given Vicodin (sorry, I don't know the generic name) for pain relief in the aftermath but I found I didn't even need that -- a couple of Advil every few hours did the trick, and the soreness was gone within about a day and a half.

If your current dentist is attentive and committed to making sure you're properly numbed before the procedure begins, you should be fine. Good luck!

 

[freakout]

Re: Possible root canal treatment - Terrified! (LO

Hi Ali and I had a root canal a couple months ago and it was not bad at all. I didn't have much time to think about it, I went in and he said it needed to be done right then. I had no pain during the procedure, although the dentist did need to numb me more than usual (it was a "hot" tooth) I had some discomfort (mild) for 3 days, but the Vicodin (hydrocodone) took care of that I you have any more questions I would be happy to try and answer them

"T"