S
Shadsie
Junior member
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2017
- Messages
- 18
Hi, there, I'm new, but I've been googling things that have lead me to this website time and again over the last few months. I am trying to get up some courage to get some dental work done after having a bad experience just under three years ago that left me phobic and unwilling to see a dentist.
I also am a person of special needs in that I have bipolar disorder and anxiety issues. My bad experience was a filling gone wrong. Before the appointment, I took a couple of pills (5mg each, so 10mg, in total, I think) of Lorezepam - this was NOT prescribed for the the dental treatment, but is a general anxiety medication I take when I am feeling especially nervous about something. I had taken that and was given nitrous - while I'd never had problems with dentistry before, I've always been high-anxiety. My dentist was working on the backmost upper molar (I've had my wisdoms out). Everything was so, far, so good with me wondering when it was going to be over... I started feeling a little pain, but thought it was "just a bit of pressure, it'll be over." then...
WHAM! Sharp, shooting, stabbing, lancing pain through through the tooth and up into my sinus!
I jumped up in the chair. My dentist and the assistant were telling me to lie back down and scolding me because they couldn't work. I screamed at them that they hurt me, curled up on a chair in the room and... I don't know if I hissed at them like a cat, but I definitely was in a cat "Don't come near me or I'll hurt you!" position. I demanded my husband come in. I was offered more novacaine, but was all "No... no... I need to be put to sleep for this, I can't deal." I let the dentist shave-down the jagged edge of the tooth, but wouldn't let them resume work.
And since sedation isn't cheap and I'm a coward, I've just kind of let it go. After all, my husband hasn't had dental or health insurance in near twenty years and he's just lived with bad teeth and teeth falling out on their own. I figured if he could do it, so could I, plus I felt guilty that he couldn't get anything done, so why should I? (If you think that's a crazy attitude, bear in mind that I outed myself as mentally ill above).
About a year later, a huge filling in the back bottom molar on that side (one I'd gotten with no trouble) fell out and since then, I've been debating with myself regarding getting it fixed. It hurt at first, but doesn't much, except it's a bit sore if I bite down back there and I get food stuck back there. I use floss-picks to dig food out. I've been wanting to get it fixed because while I can live with the little bit of soreness (and survived a flat out (surface?) infection I got at Thanskgiving last year that I killed with flosspicking and liberal applications of Anbesol), it's the constantly getting food back there and not being able to chew that side of my mouth with confidence that has reached a threshold of annoyance for me. (To add insult to injury... when the filling fell out, it was two days after our cat died, so I was in an emotionally fragile state, too... extra "pain-association") there. A couple of months ago, with the help of my caseworker, I went to a dentist (who specializes in children) for an exam and cleaning. The Lorezepam helped in that case. I was calm for the cleaning (when I was phobic about even THAT before due to my awful former dentist - they were always pretty harsh even when picking around). I was told that the back molar would need a root canal and that I had 12 cavities. I panicked. Since the back molar is essentially just shards (there's a large partial white filling there and a huge cavity where the one filling fell out), I wanted to see if I could get it extracted, instead. (I was told that the upper one - the one that gave me trouble with the filling, would have to go, so it wouldn't grow into the absent space or something). So, I have an appointment with a dentist that's a longer drive away from me that does extrations and I.V. sedation that takes my insurance, hopefully.
I am on Disability and Medicaid... there are very, very few dentists that do heavy work on that. I have an appointment in a couple of weeks to talk to the dentists of this office that supposedly will take Medicaid / Local state-poor-people insurance to see what my options are. I feel like I definitely need I.V. sedation even if a root canal is done (reading about the procedure has me panicked... not just he horror stories, but even with people who've had it gone well, I have trouble sitting still and keeping my mouth open for long periods of time and and the tedium and repetition would definitely trigger my anxiety). I am wondering, if it is not possible for me to get heavy I.V. sedation what kinds of oral drugs the regular dentist is willing to do would get me "really, really down." The dentist that did the cleaning on me said that they do Valium and nitrous. Considering my experience with Lorazepam burning off in a SPLIT INSTANT when my never-going-to-them-again old dentist did something wrong / hit a nerve that wasn't sufficently numbed and I was ANYTHING BUT CALM even with it in my system tells me that I need something heavier... like... super-heavy. It's like I'm an anxiety immunity to calm "superhero" and I need something on the level of kryptonite.
So, my question is... if you've had a bad experience that DESTROYED any effect of a standard calming medication, what kinds of calming medications are heavier/better? If I can't get completely sedated, considering nitrous and lorezepam don't work enough for me, what's my kryptonite? What's more likely to really down me and get me to not care about pain? Is Valium better? I'm looking for options for EXTREME high-anxiety mental illness-level patients.
I also am a person of special needs in that I have bipolar disorder and anxiety issues. My bad experience was a filling gone wrong. Before the appointment, I took a couple of pills (5mg each, so 10mg, in total, I think) of Lorezepam - this was NOT prescribed for the the dental treatment, but is a general anxiety medication I take when I am feeling especially nervous about something. I had taken that and was given nitrous - while I'd never had problems with dentistry before, I've always been high-anxiety. My dentist was working on the backmost upper molar (I've had my wisdoms out). Everything was so, far, so good with me wondering when it was going to be over... I started feeling a little pain, but thought it was "just a bit of pressure, it'll be over." then...
WHAM! Sharp, shooting, stabbing, lancing pain through through the tooth and up into my sinus!
I jumped up in the chair. My dentist and the assistant were telling me to lie back down and scolding me because they couldn't work. I screamed at them that they hurt me, curled up on a chair in the room and... I don't know if I hissed at them like a cat, but I definitely was in a cat "Don't come near me or I'll hurt you!" position. I demanded my husband come in. I was offered more novacaine, but was all "No... no... I need to be put to sleep for this, I can't deal." I let the dentist shave-down the jagged edge of the tooth, but wouldn't let them resume work.
And since sedation isn't cheap and I'm a coward, I've just kind of let it go. After all, my husband hasn't had dental or health insurance in near twenty years and he's just lived with bad teeth and teeth falling out on their own. I figured if he could do it, so could I, plus I felt guilty that he couldn't get anything done, so why should I? (If you think that's a crazy attitude, bear in mind that I outed myself as mentally ill above).
About a year later, a huge filling in the back bottom molar on that side (one I'd gotten with no trouble) fell out and since then, I've been debating with myself regarding getting it fixed. It hurt at first, but doesn't much, except it's a bit sore if I bite down back there and I get food stuck back there. I use floss-picks to dig food out. I've been wanting to get it fixed because while I can live with the little bit of soreness (and survived a flat out (surface?) infection I got at Thanskgiving last year that I killed with flosspicking and liberal applications of Anbesol), it's the constantly getting food back there and not being able to chew that side of my mouth with confidence that has reached a threshold of annoyance for me. (To add insult to injury... when the filling fell out, it was two days after our cat died, so I was in an emotionally fragile state, too... extra "pain-association") there. A couple of months ago, with the help of my caseworker, I went to a dentist (who specializes in children) for an exam and cleaning. The Lorezepam helped in that case. I was calm for the cleaning (when I was phobic about even THAT before due to my awful former dentist - they were always pretty harsh even when picking around). I was told that the back molar would need a root canal and that I had 12 cavities. I panicked. Since the back molar is essentially just shards (there's a large partial white filling there and a huge cavity where the one filling fell out), I wanted to see if I could get it extracted, instead. (I was told that the upper one - the one that gave me trouble with the filling, would have to go, so it wouldn't grow into the absent space or something). So, I have an appointment with a dentist that's a longer drive away from me that does extrations and I.V. sedation that takes my insurance, hopefully.
I am on Disability and Medicaid... there are very, very few dentists that do heavy work on that. I have an appointment in a couple of weeks to talk to the dentists of this office that supposedly will take Medicaid / Local state-poor-people insurance to see what my options are. I feel like I definitely need I.V. sedation even if a root canal is done (reading about the procedure has me panicked... not just he horror stories, but even with people who've had it gone well, I have trouble sitting still and keeping my mouth open for long periods of time and and the tedium and repetition would definitely trigger my anxiety). I am wondering, if it is not possible for me to get heavy I.V. sedation what kinds of oral drugs the regular dentist is willing to do would get me "really, really down." The dentist that did the cleaning on me said that they do Valium and nitrous. Considering my experience with Lorazepam burning off in a SPLIT INSTANT when my never-going-to-them-again old dentist did something wrong / hit a nerve that wasn't sufficently numbed and I was ANYTHING BUT CALM even with it in my system tells me that I need something heavier... like... super-heavy. It's like I'm an anxiety immunity to calm "superhero" and I need something on the level of kryptonite.
So, my question is... if you've had a bad experience that DESTROYED any effect of a standard calming medication, what kinds of calming medications are heavier/better? If I can't get completely sedated, considering nitrous and lorezepam don't work enough for me, what's my kryptonite? What's more likely to really down me and get me to not care about pain? Is Valium better? I'm looking for options for EXTREME high-anxiety mental illness-level patients.
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