Root canal 26 weeks pregnant

[mel33]

Hello, I have a few questions because my anxiety really gets out of control and I don't have a chance to speak with the dentist office before the weekend starts. So the dentist told me I need a root canal treatment in one of my upper premolars.. I need to go in on Tuesday and will be 26 weeks pregnant at that time. I am super scared for the treatment.. I'm afraid it will take too long and I get a panic attack.. I'm also afraid it will hurt.. since I'm also pregnant I'm also extremely uncomfortable with the stuff they gonna give me to numb me up. They wanna give me septocaine. I do read everywhere that that isn't the safest option but they still wanna use that. What is the opinion about it here? Also I'm not in extreme pain... I do have sensitivity with hot and cold and when I eat something it does hurt too but as long as I eat on the other side it's fine. Does that mean it's already super infected? Is this something I could wait with till after I get the baby? I'm just worried... I wish I didn't wait this long with visiting a dentist. My teeth were always pretty good this is the first time I got something so I have also 0 experience with getting dental work done... not even a small cavity!

Thankyou a lot.

 

[Gordon]

Congratulations on your pregnancy.
Articaine (Septocaine is the brand name) is the best local anaesthetic around for dentistry IMO, I have no idea where you read that it's not safe, it is completely safe to use.
There was some controversy around it's use for lower molars but that turned out to be a flawed piece of research which has been pretty comprehensively debunked now.
The treatment from the patient POV (I had one a month or so ago!) is basically just boring. There's a lot of fiddling about in your tooth a sensation similar to having your nails filed and not much else.
Arrange a "stop" signal with your dentist so you can have a break when you need one and you'll be fine.
You really don't want to leave this, I've had to treat ladies who had abscesses during delivery (used to be based in a Maternity Hospital!) and they all said it was more painful than the childbirth

 

[mel33]

@Gordon thankyou very much! It's my first so very exciting.
About septocaine.. I don't meant like unsafe like for me but I just read that it's usually not the first choice for pregnant women since it's catogory C and there are also catogory B ones one of those is lidocaine I think. I know they gonna use septocaine because they already used that on me when they did a cleaning.. not as much tho because they only used some for my lower teeth since my gums where most sore there. And baby is fine but still I assume for a root canal they gonna use a little bit more septocaine. It did work good I have to say that.. I think I was numb for about an hour/hour and half. The thing I mostly worry about is that I gonna get a uncontrolled panic attack in the middle of the treatment usually I would take some xanax or something but I can't take anything now because of the pregnancy. That is why I was thinking maybe it can wait till after... but I'm already a bit sore and I also afraid that when I wait I get a big infection and that will be harmful for sure for the baby. My OBGYN pointed that out too. For the rest I'm just afraid that the septocaine isn't gonna do is job or that I gonna feel pain half way the treatment but I don't know if those fears are realistic. But thankyou for your message it does make me realize I just really need to go.. I already canceled once. I definitely will update here on how it went also for other people who are in this situation too. Hopefully a good update!

 

[Gordon]

There's probably more risk to the baby (and it's really not a risk at all!) from your blood pressure shooting up and so on from having pain during the root canal.

Since Articaine is a better local anaesthetic, there's less chance of you feeling pain and you'll need less of it... so it's probably better all round.

The infection in the tooth won't harm the baby, but it won't make delivering it much fun for you!