Have you ever heard of someone getting a cavity filled at the dentist, using NO anesthesia or gas, nothing at all?
My gosh! I spelled anesthesia right all by myself!
I dropped my daughter and six year old granddaughter, Brande, off at the dentist so Brande could get a filling in her tooth. I came back about 30 minutes later. They were done, all was well, no tears, no recent trauma was evident. I asked if they’d given her gas (I know it’s nitrous oxide!) Corrie said “No.”
My eyes got a little wide and I said, “She got a shot??”
Corrie said, “No.” And in answer to my blank, wordless question she said, “She didn’t have anything. The doctor gives the kids that option.” Brande said it didn’t hurt at all.
Well! Humph! The shots sure hurt! So….why haven’t we been doing it this way all along?
(I understand that if it’s bad enough, and the Doctor could hit a nerve, well, yes. You want shots or whatever.)
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I had a filling once when I was in my teens without pain relief in a bid to impress the dental nurse. It was the stupidest decision I ever made and it hurt like hell!
Yes, me.
I used to have cavities filled that way for years, though the last years i ask for anestiisiiaa.
Look, i spelled anaesthesia wrong.
I don’t get it @OreetCocker….why didn’t it hurt my granddaughter?
@rebbel Why do you ask for anesthesia now? Lord, I spelled it right again! What’s wrong with me! You can copy and paste mine, Rebbel!
@I_Dutchess
I ask for it now because i didn’t visit a dentist for five years and i because of that i had some tooth ache, pretty bad tooth ache actually.
Well, to be honoust, i was afraid of what was going to happen and for the (possible) pain.
When i wrote “Look, i spelled anaesthesia wrong.” i spelled it right.
Yes. My pediatric dentist when I was a child didn’t use anything on me once because I ran to the parking lot when I saw the anesthetic syringe. After I was captured and returned to the chair he drilled a tooth to be filled; It hurt in a way I can’t describe. I know that today I would simply faint.
I think it depends on the extent of the cavity. My son had a very small cavity, and the dentist said she was sure she could do the filling without any numbing or gas. My son wasn’t in any pain at all. The depth of the drilling, maybe the position of the cavity in relation to nerves, must determine how much pain medication will be needed.
I grew up in a era before novocaine; I chewed bubble gum; I had deep cavities as a teen; I hung on to a nurse’s hand until my nails dug into her palms; the drills were slow and heated up fast. It was torture.
Now my dentist tells me when it will hurt and when it won’t. He always gives me the choice of stopping and getting numbed.
My sister has no pain meds ever; she prefers to get it over with. Neither I nor the dental staff can fathom it, but she hates the way novocaine lingers on for hours.
(You can spell “anesthesia” this way, without the diphthong, also.)
Well, if you think about it, if you’re not impacting the nerve, there’s nothing there to feel the pain and HOLY CRAP! I’M DUTCHESS THE THIRD NOW! Yahoo! Thanks Auggie :)
when i was little we had a dentist in New Jersey who was about 70. my grandparents had been going to him since at least when my mother was young, and so he was like a family friend to us all. he did not have a receptionist. it was just him. he had these glasses that had like three layers of lenses on them. his equipment looked like it was from the 1920’s. it really looked like something you would see in a museum. at the time when i was little, like 1970’s, he charged $5 for a cavity. he used no novacaine. his drills were not high speed like they are today. it was not fun but to me it was not torture. to me the bad part of the dentist’s drill is the vibration, and no shot alleviates the feeling of the vibration. actually the pain of the shot is the worst part – so having the cavity filled without the shot is not that bad, considering that shot or no shot, you’re still feeling the vibration.
@jca Yeah. That and the smell of something burning….
the smell of tooth being drilled off
Many times. When I can go without it I will.
Me – when I was a kid. I feared the needle more than the drill.
I was a dummy.
A friend of mine just lets them drill away.She is tough:)
Very tiny cavity, obviously. The only people I’ve heard of who went through this horrendous trauma are my husband and my dad. I was given overdoses of nitrous and Lots of painful, worthless shots. Thus, a life-long fear of dentists that I’ve mostly overcome.
Yes, my partner is allergic to most everything and she can’t have anything related to numbing her gums. Terrible terrible pain. I would not wish that on anyone.
I’ve had several fillings done with no numbing stuff but that was over a decade ago. Only once did a filling have a shot with it and that’s because deeper drilling out of the tooth was required rather than filling small soft spots.
@jca
I agree. The shot doesn’t help with the vibration. I’ve only had two fillings in my life (the first one was on a baby tooth that fell out), but with the second one, there was just a certain spot in my bottom right teeth that hurt no matter what. They even gave me an extra shot, but it didn’t help. It hurt before that when she touched it with the scraper thing.
The Amish never use anesthesia when having dental work done.
While getting dental work recently, the dentist and nurse were talking about how mainly elderly women come in and refuse novacaine. Not sure if it’s a generation thing.
After I had my first son, the dentist just could never get me numbed. I felt it all. I had cavities in all my front teeth, so I’d cry in pain while he did it. Poor dentist might have been more traumatized than me.
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