Went in for a crown the other day. The dentist got called away to a different patient midway through. Anesthesia started wearing off. Dentist took her time with the other patient. I was fairly tensed up by the time she got back. I was doing my best to balance being polite with limiting how much the pain affected me. The longer she was gone, the less I was able to pretend I wasn’t in pain. My strategy for pain management is tensing inwards, and I hadn’t raised my voice or cursed. I was waiting for my turn.

A friend who works there later told me that the dentist said I scared her and she thought I was going to harm her. I can’t seem to make sense of that. I can’t think of what threatening behavior I displayed, unless dentists getting attacked by patients is just a thing they have to deal with.

  • ilex@lemmy.worldOP
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    1 year ago

    I did let them know. I did the hand raising earlier in the procedure. When I felt it wearing off, I alerted the dental assistant who was with me. I let her know an approximate time table based on the pain.

    There was an issue with how much lidocane they were able to give me. I burned through the max. After that, there simply wasn’t anything they could do for me.

    • robocall@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      IMO If the dentist was with another patient long enough for the lidocaine to wear off, they should have provided more without charge.

    • catchy_name@feddit.it
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      1 year ago

      I’m sorry that you had to go through that. Hopefully the dentist is alarmed at this failure and reflects on ways to avoid it in future procedures.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      There’s a Serial podcast series called The Extractions. A nurse stole pain killers and replaced it with saline. I doubt that’s happening here, but you could raise the issue that they might have faulty meds. Sorry to post multiple comments. This is a topic near and dear to me because it hits close to home.