M
merlin
Member
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2010
- Messages
- 29
- Location
- UK
I thought I’d post this here in case it helps anyone who is worried about wisdom tooth extraction, or palatal injections.
I had a traumatic experience with local anaesthetic as a child. Dentist went very fast, injected the inside of my cheek and caused instantaneous bruising (it was bad enough that next day at school, teachers thought I’d be punched). Ever since that point I’ve been terrified of dentists, and dreading any form of treatment. I don’t have an issue with other injections, vaccines or even donating blood.
Fairly recently I broke a wisdom tooth. I went to the dentist (who was new to me) and she explained that it needed extracting. When I suggested sedation she asked me to try without, specifically because she thought she could make it quite a positive experience and wanted me to be able to remember it. I agreed. The only catch, she explained, was that she needed to do a palatal injection and she mentioned that she’s very good at them.
I listened to a self hypnosis audio book every day for two weeks until my appointment. Not sure if it helped, but worth mentioning. One thing that certainly did help was a conversation with a friend who said “try to reframe it in your head, the dentist is doing a really difficult job so try to make it easier for them”. That really helped, for some reason.
At the actual appointment she sat me down, put a piece of cotton between my gum and cheek and took it out to do the first injection. It was fine, I felt it but it was like 2/10. She said that she needs to let that numb for 5 minutes and then she’ll do the palate. About 30 seconds in she said she wanted to take a look at it again, and promptly did the palatal. She basically caught me by surprise, which meant that I was pretty relaxed. To be honest it wasn’t particular painful, and definitely wasn’t a sharp pain. It felt a bit like someone pushing a blunt fingernail into the roof of my mouth. It didn’t completely numb me though so she had to do a third one, which was really far back. She actually said “you won’t few this one” but it’s the only one that made me wince.
It only took her about 15 minutes to remove the broken tooth, and I was able to eat solid food the same evening. All in all a very positive experience.
I had a traumatic experience with local anaesthetic as a child. Dentist went very fast, injected the inside of my cheek and caused instantaneous bruising (it was bad enough that next day at school, teachers thought I’d be punched). Ever since that point I’ve been terrified of dentists, and dreading any form of treatment. I don’t have an issue with other injections, vaccines or even donating blood.
Fairly recently I broke a wisdom tooth. I went to the dentist (who was new to me) and she explained that it needed extracting. When I suggested sedation she asked me to try without, specifically because she thought she could make it quite a positive experience and wanted me to be able to remember it. I agreed. The only catch, she explained, was that she needed to do a palatal injection and she mentioned that she’s very good at them.
I listened to a self hypnosis audio book every day for two weeks until my appointment. Not sure if it helped, but worth mentioning. One thing that certainly did help was a conversation with a friend who said “try to reframe it in your head, the dentist is doing a really difficult job so try to make it easier for them”. That really helped, for some reason.
At the actual appointment she sat me down, put a piece of cotton between my gum and cheek and took it out to do the first injection. It was fine, I felt it but it was like 2/10. She said that she needs to let that numb for 5 minutes and then she’ll do the palate. About 30 seconds in she said she wanted to take a look at it again, and promptly did the palatal. She basically caught me by surprise, which meant that I was pretty relaxed. To be honest it wasn’t particular painful, and definitely wasn’t a sharp pain. It felt a bit like someone pushing a blunt fingernail into the roof of my mouth. It didn’t completely numb me though so she had to do a third one, which was really far back. She actually said “you won’t few this one” but it’s the only one that made me wince.
It only took her about 15 minutes to remove the broken tooth, and I was able to eat solid food the same evening. All in all a very positive experience.
!
