Yesterday I accompanied my Mom to a dentist appointment where she underwent "sedation dentistry" and had a tooth pulled that has been bothering her since the third grade . You may ask, why in the HECK would she wait that long to get it worked on?
Well amongst the fact that she had horrible experiences with dentists her entire life, and the fact that she has already had 2 root canals on this particular tooth with no avail, she is absolutely, positively terrified of the dentist.
I began to notice that her jaw had actually started to move out of line from chewing on the left side only for well over 3 years, so I all but forced her to make the appointment. Initially I thought it was just a surface fear, but the closer it got to time to go the more I realized - holy cow this is a deep-seeded, petrified-out-of-her-mind fear.
So, God bless sedation dentistry, because I spoke to her today and she remembers absolutely nothing about yesterday. The pieces she says she remembers, she forgets by the next time she wakes up from the hydrocodone. Overall, it was a success. The tooth was removed, she'll have a new one put in and finally - finally she will be able to use her full mouth freely for the first time in years.
Two points - 1) Some fears are hard to explain and may even seem silly to someone else, but I have a new appreciation for trying to understand why someone may fear something that you may not. 2) Sedation dentistry is insane.
My mother was not "put to sleep" via laughing gas or any type of anesthesia. She was knocked out asleep by pain pills alone. We're talking, "oh I'm just gonna go to sleep for a little while as they rip a tooth outta my head. It's cool." She barely recognized me when I walked back to help her out. It was craziness, but well worth it for her. Yay medicine!
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