Went in for a crown the other day. The dentist got called away to a different patient midway through. Anesthesia started wearing off. Dentist took her time with the other patient. I was fairly tensed up by the time she got back. I was doing my best to balance being polite with limiting how much the pain affected me. The longer she was gone, the less I was able to pretend I wasn’t in pain. My strategy for pain management is tensing inwards, and I hadn’t raised my voice or cursed. I was waiting for my turn.
A friend who works there later told me that the dentist said I scared her and she thought I was going to harm her. I can’t seem to make sense of that. I can’t think of what threatening behavior I displayed, unless dentists getting attacked by patients is just a thing they have to deal with.
She probably saw from your eyes and expression how stressed you were. You might have looked a little “wild-eyed” to her. She barely knows you so she wouldn’t know with confidence that you behave well under pressure.
I suggest that you leave a message informing your dentist of what happened here regarding insufficient pain management. You can include an apology if you want for seeming stressed.
The goal here is to inform her that she can do a more thorough job managing pain. Part of that needs to be telling her patients to speak up as soon as they begin to feel pain. I’ll bet that had you told staff of the pain they’d have found a way to manage it. Probably the Dr would have popped over and dosed you with something.
I did let them know. I did the hand raising earlier in the procedure. When I felt it wearing off, I alerted the dental assistant who was with me. I let her know an approximate time table based on the pain.
There was an issue with how much lidocane they were able to give me. I burned through the max. After that, there simply wasn’t anything they could do for me.
IMO If the dentist was with another patient long enough for the lidocaine to wear off, they should have provided more without charge.
They did.
I’m sorry that you had to go through that. Hopefully the dentist is alarmed at this failure and reflects on ways to avoid it in future procedures.
There’s a Serial podcast series called The Extractions. A nurse stole pain killers and replaced it with saline. I doubt that’s happening here, but you could raise the issue that they might have faulty meds. Sorry to post multiple comments. This is a topic near and dear to me because it hits close to home.