Unfiltered Story #100574

(I am 20 in this story. After a year of having my top wisdom teeth creep out and cause me severe headaches, I go to see a dentist whom I saw as a very young child, who has a large practice in a nearby city. My parents knew him quite well when we lived in the city, though I never remembered having good memories of visits to his office. To be fair, I had a lot of teeth pulled as a kid, so that could be why. My Mom is with me at this appointment.)
Dentist: “After checking out your x-rays, we definitely need to take out those top wisdom teeth before they compact the rest too much. You can see here too (shows me x-ray) that your bottom wisdom teeth are actually laying sideways and backwards, and the roots are very close to your main nerve on the jawline. If those move or try to erupt, it will be very painful and potentially dangerous.”
Me: “Okay, makes sense, so, you perform the surgery here then?”
Dentist: “Yes, we can do the procedure here. I try to avoid complete sedation as it means an easier recovery for you.”
Me: “I appreciate that, but trust me, I want to be knocked out. I don’t want to have any memories of that.”
Him: “But I don’t think you understand – if you’re conscious but medicated then I can give you direction to move your jaw, rather than me manipulating it while you’re asleep, plus anesthetic often makes people throw up the next day. Do you want to throw up over four new wounds in your mouth?”
Me: “Well no – of course not, but I’ve never had that reaction in previous surgeries, right?” (I look at my Mom who nods to confirm.) “I appreciate what you’re saying here, but you don’t want me awake just as much as I don’t want to be awake.”
Dentist: “I think you’re overreacting a bit. We’ll do the procedure medicated, and you’ll see how much faster you recover.”
Me: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
(Fast forward to the day of the procedure. I’ve been prescribed Ativan to make me “loopy”. The prescription is for 4 pills, which they claim is enough to make me drooling and comatose. I’m told to take one pill an hour before I arrive at the office. Upon arrival, I am vibrating with anxiety about the procedure, and no where near relaxed or loopy. My mom talks to one of the nurses, who says I should take another pill, and I will ‘definitely’ be high. 40 minutes later, my pupils are massive, I’m clearly under the influence, but still not relaxed- AT ALL. The dentist decides to proceed, assuring me I’ll calm down.)
Dentist: “Okay, I’m going to put a LOT of freezing in since you say you don’t feel relaxed enough. So there will be a LOT of needles to start with.”
I nod, though I am starting to get teary. The needles are horrible – into the roof of my mouth, the back corners of my jaw, everywhere. By the time he is done freezing me, I am shaking violently from the shock of the pain and crying. A nurse gives me a blanket and tries to calm me down. After the freezing is set, he pushes on.
Dentist: “Alright, I need you to open your mouth as wide as you can.” (I do) “No, wider. WIDER.” (I manage to mumble out that’s all I can do) “Why is your mouth so small? This is going to be way more difficult than I thought.”
(The procedure goes terribly. He complains the entire time he’s doing it about how small my mouth is and how tight my jaw is. Once he’s done the top two which are glorified extractions, he ‘closes up’ and tells my Mom he refuses to attempt the bottom ones, and doesn’t understand why we talked him into trying conscious sedation. My Mom was furious. We ended up finding a proper oral surgeon to remove my bottom teeth without any issues. The worst part? Two weeks after the first procedure I discover that the dentist actually broken one of the teeth he was working on, leaving a piece behind. I had to pull it out myself. The whole incident traumatized me from going to any dentist for almost two years.)