I’ve had two. Both times I took Ativan to relax me, and then he used local freezing. I was so, so scared of the pain (I’m really scared of the dentist too), but I did not feel a THING! I was shocked and very relieved. It also helped squash some of my dentist fears because of such a good experience as well.
I did get achy when the freezing came out and as everything healed, but nothing Tylenol didn’t fix.
Mine was pretty simple. They numbed me with Novocaine, and the dentist went to work. He was called away in the middle and I was afraid it would wear off, but there was still plenty of time to finish everything up.
BTW, my grandfather was a dentist and one of the earlier developers of the procedures, in a time when antibiotics were just being developed.
Heh - yep.
Adding something else on top - nitrous or even a sedative - can help the local anesthesia a LOT. Someone else could probably explain the mechanism a lot better than I could, but I know nitrous itself has analgesic effects, in addition to the relaxation, The relaxation from a sedative can be pretty profound also (obviously, that’s what it’s FOR). So the anesthetic works better.
I had a temporary crown break once, and had to go to a colleague of my regular dentist (who was out of town). It took him I think seven shots of local anesthetic to get the replacement temp crown made. Note that this was a much less involved procedure than the original crown work was. I believe it was far worse because of my anxiety - and once you feel pain, it’s a nasty positive feedback loop - you fear, which makes the pain worse, which makes you fear more, which…
By the time he was done, I was basically hysterical - I actually went into the bathroom and cried.
Well, in one of my RC’s, the root was partially numb not not totally. So when the doc drilled into it, it stung, but not so bad they had to scrape me off the ceiling. Then he stuck the xylocaine needle directly into the hole in the tooth and squirted directly on the nerve there.
THAT did the trick real fast, real thoroughly.
Then he had to drill into that tooth again about a week later to finish up something. This time, he used NO ANAESTHETIC AT ALL, and I didn’t feel a thing. Because the nerve there was totally long-gone.