Lidocaine is wearing off.

Reminds me that the dentist for my hometown (where I went to school) did not believe in using Novocain. Someone mentioned that a few months back in hometown group, asking if anyone else had severe anxiety going to the dentist & this flood of horror stories and still powerful phobias poured out

its so sad so many dentists thought that it was ok to try and drill kids with out anesthesia. there was this pervasive theory that just drill till it hurt was a better option than making the patient numb and comfortable for treatment

When I was a kid I had to have some teeth removed before getting braces (too crowded in there). The dentist didn't give me enough numbing before the extraction. My screams were so loud that he actually told me that I had to stop screaming because I was "scaring the patients in the waiting area"! I hated him from that moment on.

It's amazing that didn't traumatize me somehow, because I have zero problems with dentists today.

I had to have some molars pulled when I was probably 5 or 6 and the dentist was not nice at all. He had hurt me before and wanted me to open my mouth and I wouldn't, so he tried to pry open my mouth. I bit him. Hard. Later I had the same experience as (((Cajsa))) with people talking as adults about the horrible dentist we had in town when we were kids.

That’s horrific

i had a lot of dental phobia till i started working in the field a lot of it for me was fear of the unknown. what is that noise/ what is that for? its why i try and explain everything I do to my patients

I had what they used to call “milk bottle teeth” bcse I was allowed to sleep with a milk bottle to soothe me. It rotted my teeth. They basically all crumbled - and had to be pulled and picked out- over a year or two- yeah, I got trauma

There was another dentist in town but he was struck off the list when my older sister was little. He drilled a hole through her tongue and did not tell my mom. He stuck a cotton ball in the hole and let her leave and the cotton ball went down her throat. She started choking, Mom swept her mouth and throat and pulled out the blood-soaked cotton ball.

The hole in her tongue grew back and closed.