Let's see what happens.

Random Dentist Experience

· Alexander

This time

So I was about to visit a dentist today. It was my last visit in this “session”. And I needed to fix a wisdom tooth.

And I randomly recollected that at some point in the past when a dentist was injecting anesthesia it felt like they are injecting the needle right into the bone.

And since this was my last visit I felt like experimentating and not injecting anything this time. But I wasn’t sure if I will really decide to not use it.

In the end the decision was not that hard. And I got two observations from it.

1. Danger overrides pain

(needle + hard to access tooth + recollection ~ danger); Experimenting thing would not overwrite it in my case. I am not that hardcore. But it was not danger by itself what informed my decision. It only kept me from flaking :).

2. Middle-ish-intensity not-long pain was more like an attention signal, not like something important at all

I was focused on two other things - jaw position and throat state. So pain was more like a signal to give attention there but there was nothing unexpected anyway.

Some previous time

I do not plan to have a series of dentist posts at this point. But I’d like to record previous experiences as well.

One was when I was really affected by it. So I felt like I’m surrounded by enemies and every time after they were stopping I had to remind myself that everybody around is acting in my interests as well. I probably also was kind of vividly focusing on pain and what exactly they were doing. And you get some kind of high after it is over.

Another time I got anesthesia and it didn’t really work. So I felt it but I was content. Either because I was relaxed because I expected it to work (and there was nothing else to do anyway). Or because the nature of that anesthesia - but that is unlikely.

Summary

  • experimenting/relaxed mindset is probably a good idea;
  • pain fear/avoidance is overrided by expectation of danger;
  • keeping track of dentist but not focusing exactly on their “working area” but on other bodily matters instead seems to be a good idea;