So do a lot of dental patients act badly?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Do dental patients typically act out a lot?

I ask because tooday I had an unpleasant tooth extraction, which took about an hour and 15 minutes and had to be stopped in the middle so they could take x-rays to figure out what the deal was with the nerves in my tooth. This wasn’t surprising to me as a previous dentist, who was a professor at Tufts Dental School, used slides from the root canal he performed on me as a teaching tool. Apparently I have peculiar nerves in my teeth - too many, too long, all kinked and coiled. Not easy to deal with, in other words.

Anyway, I was calm and quiet throughout, just muttering a placid “uh-huh” whenever I was asked how I was doing, and at one point grunting because I was starting to feel pain (then they did another round of numbing, saying it wasn’t surprising that I was starting to feel something, due to how one nerve was much longer than they expected).

So, it was no fun, but sure as hell better than 19th century dentistry. My dentist is a sweet guy with a good bedside manner who has for years had the same helpful, and cheerful staff (which seems like a good sign). I trained my thoughts on beautiful hikes I took in the deserts of Egypt while enduring the surgery.

Anyway, when it was finally over, the dentist and his assistant explicitly thanked me for being such a good patient. Now, I’m as susceptible to praise as the next person, so of course I was happy to hear that. But at the same time I wondered - and what else would I have done, exactly? No one likes protracted dental surgery, but you’d only make things worse if you screamed and cried and shook and wiggled around. The procedure would take longer and focusing on the discomfort would probably just make it hurt more.

Do people (other than the occasional outlier that crops up in any service-related field) really act out that badly at the dentist? I’m not especially brave or stoic, so it really surprises me to think I might have been an exceptionally good patient.

Next time I might ask for a gold star.

2

I acted out alot. Til they figured the gas was the problem. Apparently it made me kinda crazy and paranoid.
I always got lots of sympathy. After that, the gold stars started coming. Eh…they ain’t so great.

Here’s yours though: :star:

Feel better!

3

Ah gee thanks Ms. Beck!

When you say “gas,” do you mean “laughing gas” (there is a more scientific name for it but I forget what it is)? Years ago a dentist offered it and as I started to breathe it in, I began to pass out, not in a good way, and said I didn’t want it. He was puzzled, saying that was not a typical reaction, but if I was willing to go without the gas, so was he.

Since then I don’t think I’ve ever been offered it, and if I were, I’d probably turn it down unless the doc said, “yeah, you REALLY need this.”

4

Yes, nitrous oxide, I think it is.

Sad, too. Some get a nice pleasant nap off it.

5

So I’ve heard. I guess you and I are not among those lucky folks.

6

I do not know that I acted badly but it seems I am very sensitive to dental pain so I will fuss in the chair. Usually the dentist will stop and administer more Novocaine. I have had this pause happen multiple times in one sitting.

Am I just being a baby at the slightest twinge and should just deal with it? Not sure. The dentists are patient about it though and just keep on with the Novocaine.

When I was on nitrous to have wisdom teeth removed there was one moment where I could feel the dental surgeon yanking really hard on my tooth and I fussed some. Not sure what happened but I think he gave some signal to the dental nurse helping him and she turned up the gas. Don’t remember much after that.

7

The Lil’wrekker is so sensitive she goes to a “pain free” dental clinic. She goes on an IV and completely asleep. They have an anesthesiologist on staff.(Yeah, I checked).

Good thing she has good teeth. I’d hate her to have to have it very often. The last was her wisdom teeth on top. 4 or so years ago. She’s had check ups and no problems since.

8

I had several drillings done without anesthesia. I coped by doing math in my head. To this day I can do numbers fairly quickly. My college classmates commented on it without realizing the painful origins.

9

I go for a regular cleaning every few months. Simple routine, no anesthetic, no problems. But they use sharp pointy tools, and it hurts. I hate it!. I tense up my entire body, gripping the armrests on the chair like a vise , locking my knees, etc. I tense up the muscles in my back so much that it hurts like I had been lifting weights.
I don’t really do anything wrong. I just react to the fear of pain by locking my whole body up like rigor mortis.
I try to joke with the dentist and her assistant , but I get the impression that they don’t like the fact that I make it harder for them to work on me.
I dunno if I act badly, but the doctor always seems glad to see me leave. :frowning:

For a bit of positive perspective:
I once went to a root canal guy who, without asking me , put a pair of headphones on my head.
Big, very heavy, 1980’s style headphones, with (water-filled?) rubbery pads that press and seal closely around your ears. He played classical music. And it really helped me tolerate an unpleasant hour or two.
I still tensed up my whole body till all my muscles were sore and I was too exhausted to drive home. But from the dentist’s point of view, I think it made me a better patient.

10

I am of the same demeanor as the OP. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had some oral surgery performed in preparation for getting implants in the upper left quadrant of my mouth. The procedure started at 8:45 am and I finally was able to leave the chair at 11:30 am. Several times during the session both the surgeon and his assistants told me how ‘great’ I was doing.

After it was over, I asked about those compliments. They told me that patients often get distressed to the point where the surgeon has to stop the procedure and allow the patient to stand up and walk around for a few minutes before they can continue. They always recommend gas for a session that’s going to take longer than 90 minutes. (If there is a next time, I may choose that option!)

11

I find it interesting that you thought about how beneficial your actions would be. I’m pretty sure those thrashing or yelling aren’t doing so because they thought it through, but are acting entirely on instinct. I think all of us would if the pain were bad enough.

12

I for one try to put myself into the shoes of a dentist who must have thousands of patients on their chair, so I am aware that ‘involuntary sharp indrawing of breath’ is entirely sufficient as a clear signal that I feel pain. Other patient perhaps do not think that, and feel a need to be more demonstrative.

13

My husband has an unusually sensitive gag reflex, but I make sure he alerts any dental staff working on him so they know to watch out. He agrees with me that it’s rather impolite to throw up on someone if it can be avoided.

14

Do you mean that the cleaning is routinely painful frequently during the procedure? or that once in a while it hurts momentarily?

Because if you mean the first, then I think something’s wrong: possibly with your gums, but possibly with the skill of the cleaner.

15

Wow…that ain’t cheap!

When I had my wisdom teeth out I was offered an option to be knocked out. I said yeah…that’s for me! Then they showed me the estimate which was something like $250 for every 15 minutes and the procedure would take 45-60 minutes. Nitrous was something like $200 for the whole thing.

I noped right out of the knock-out stuff and, honestly, the nitrous plus a huge blast of Novocaine worked just fine. Saying that as a complete wimp when it comes to pain. (Actually…I handle pain pretty well; what I do not handle well is thinking about pain…i.e. I will deal with a burn while cooking just fine but I will freak if you come at me with something that might burn me…hope that makes sense.)

16

You reminded me of a moment I had in the emergency room a couple of years back. I had tripped while running, as I was turning a corner, so my right arm had flipped out to support myself and in the fall it flipped up enough to crack the ball at the top of the humerus in three places.

An hour and a half in, before the X-rays showed the damage, the nurse who was attending me asked “On a scale of one to ten, how bad is your pain?”
I mumbled “I guess it’s about a three” and she offered me some ibuprofen.
Those pain scales confuse me because I really think that the numbers above 5 ought to be reserved for severed limbs and … dental pain!

Whenever the dentist is getting close to a nerve, I tense up, knowing that if he strikes gold I will probably learn what a 9 or a 10 is on that list.

And screaming, crying, shaking, and wiggling around might be appropriate when hitting new uncharted territories on the pain scale.

17

I had a cavity repaired without anesthesia a few years ago. I coped by pretending I was Jack Bauer from the show “24” and was being tortured to give up some key piece of intelligence.

I didn’t give in.

mmm

18

If the dentist will not expect to be going anywhere near the nerve I can see that this might work but woe to the person where the dentist drills a little too far. You’d probably hit the roof.

IANADentist but I would be surprised if they agreed to go with no Novocaine these days unless there was some medical reason not to.

19

This. An occasional slight ouch is to be expected. If you’re getting painfully poked more than a couple times per cleaning, either you have a real mess of a mouth and periodontal disease, or you have a real mess of a cleaning tech.

At my current dentist I’ve used for 10 years now, the cleaner I drew for my first visit was a very thorough but rather rough worker. Lots more poking than the norm. I asked for a different one next time and was pleased to get back to the usual mildly inconvenient but 99+% painless experience.

20

I recently had an oral surgeon act badly.

I saw this doctor to have two teeth extracted. During the initial consult, I was very clear that I wanted to be completely unconscious during the procedure (I paid an additional $2,000 over my insurance for this), but during the procedure I was awake and remembering almost everything she did.

This was especially distressing when she cracked a wisdom tooth to extract it. Worse, IT HURT!

The drug she did use left me unable to respond. This is one of my worst nightmares, and an echo of the careless military dentists of the 60s and early 70s that treated me.

When I asked about this during the follow-up, she became very aggressive, hostile and rude. She refused to examine her work, even though I was still in pain two weeks after the procedure.

This was a very poor experience and completely different from my first visit to this practice for an implant with a different doctor. I have never encountered a more combative and unprofessional doctor.

All of this because of a question that I had every right to ask.