• Dental Phobia Support

    Welcome! This is an online support group for anyone who is has a severe fear of the dentist or dental treatment. Please note that this is NOT a general dental problems or health anxiety forum! You can find a list of them here.

    Register now to access all the features of the forum.

Wisdom teeth surgery.... terrified of anesthesia/sedation

C

ct98

Junior member
Joined
Jun 29, 2017
Messages
1
I am going to get my wisdom teeth extracted in about a week. At first I was very scared because I have TMJ issues and I am worried that my jaw would get messed up or wouldn't recover well. While researching that I came across information about the anesthesia and sedation and now I am terrified about that. All four of my teeth impacted and my mouth is very small so I don't think local anesthesia will work, plus I would rather not be fully aware of what is going on. I do not know yet if I what type of sedation/anesthesia I will have yet but I will find out tomorrow. My main fear is that I won't wake up or my breathing will stop or something else fatal. I know chances are small but I can't help but think I will fall into that small chance. I'm not really sure what to think I'm just so scared of something going bad during sedation. I don't know what the least risky route would be but I just need some reassurance or something.
 
Hey! Your fears are really common. A lot of people are scared of general anesthetic and sedation etc. It's a fear of the unknown, as well as having to put our trust in someone else.

I had teeth removed under general anesthetic, and it was fine. Like going to sleep, then waking up from a deep nap. These things are actually really safe. And the risk is smaller than small - it's miniscule. You're in more danger next time you get into a car (I don't know if that's comforting or not, but I hope so :p)

Besides, even if something did go wrong, do you think the oral surgeons and assistants would just throw their hands up and be like "woops, we lost this one, call it a wrap"? Because they are in fact trained on what to do if someone has a bad reaction to sedation, and if you're under general anesthetic, there will be an anesthetist there, whose entire career is giving people GA and monitering them during the procedure. You will be in super safe hands.

Yours is a really common fear, but I promise you'll be fine. :)
 
Back
Top