God I love/hate dentists !!!

[JohnK]

After suffering the most excrutiating pain after diving caused by a reverse block in a tooth cavity, I now have to visit the dreaded dentist.

In short, I do not DO dentists and am crapping myself at the pain. Furthermore, cos I am not registered I have to join the masses at an emergency dentist.

Gettin palpitations already - the only thing that drives me is getting back to diving. I`ve even got to be all grown up and go myself !!!!

I hope they are gentle with me.

Are dentists more pain conscious nowadays ?? - last time I visited was as a child and had 7 teeth out and that was on gas. Please tell me they have ways of numbing the pain nowadays..........................

[Helen F H]

I had to be sedated for a long time to get the work done on my teeth. Now i am with a diver as a dentist i had a tooth out about a year ago with no sedation, i dont worry about it very much at all now.

Explain you are nervous. Say you want the gum numbing gel where they are going to inject and it doesent hurt very much at all (this from the biggest wuss on the planet). Also agree a signal with your hands if you want them to stop so you can compose yourself or if it hurts.

[colinicky]

yes they have other ways to deaden the pain .the trouble is that to deaden the pain of drilling & filling they stick a dirty great needle in your gum 2 or 3 times & inject stuff to numb it ! so i hope your going to be a big brave adult(ish) diver & not be scared of needles .in all seriousness as mentioned before talk to the dentist ,get them to explain what they are going to do ,ask for the gel , try to relax .
good luck we'll be thinking of you

[dry suit diver]

The numb gel is good to stop the pain of the needle for the proper anasthetic,
I had serious root canal work last year (2hours in the chair) and was fine on injections , when i had teeth out as a teenager they didnt use the gel and that hurt more than the extraction would have without the anasthetic.

So always ask for the gel.
Or sink half a bottle of scotch before and you wont care if it hurts.

[Woz]

Heroin. It's a great pain killer.

[Janos]

I have a crush on my dentist. She's luvverly, and absolutely tiny - you can't imagine her causing you pain. Howver it's really, really, hard to chat her up when you're mouth is full of that funny pink toothpaste and you're dribbling from the bottom left corner of your mouth.

Laters,
Janos

[malcolm smith]

Hi Kirky,

A tip from one who knows-----do not at any time in your conversation with your dentist, at least prior to treatment, say-----God, I hate dentists.

We are sensitive souls, and we don't like it.

Also, hope he/she doesn't read YD :-)

Good luck, Malcolm BDS.

[Tonto]

I like lady dentists for the opposite (and higher) reason that SWMBO likes male dentists.
I find that if you pretend that you're paying to have the pain done to you because you like it it seems not as bad

[ahar]

Novocain is quite a good pain killer, but it can't stop the drilling sensation...

[ScubaSue]

Funny (??) you should mention that, I had to go to the dentist yesterday - as a result of discovering a 'problem' when we went on a dry-dive last November.

The biggest pain for me in having the filling drilled out and refilled was - - it cost eighty quid!!

Now that's really painful!!

However, it was numbed by the fact that my dentist too is really cute

PS: I had my eyes lasered a couple of years ago - now that was worrying!!