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I ended up on a several hour car ride with an anesthesiologist, he mentioned that Dentists are often grandfathered in, and often end up doing serious procedures
by sliken 6y ago
I ended up on a several hour car ride with an anesthesiologist, he mentioned that Dentists are often grandfathered in, and often end up doing serious procedures without an anesthesiologist involved. So while they are focusing on the procedure heart rate, breathing rate, O2, etc aren't monitored nearly enough.
Apparently getting panicked calls from dentists was not unusual. In one particular case a 18 year old woman wouldn't wake up, he helped as much as he could, but she was never the same.
Morale of the story, don't let a dentist put you under without an actual anesthesiologist involved.
- tachyonbeam 6y agoSo I guess what might be going on here, is partial brain tissue death from lack of oxygen, or something like that? Holy fuck.
- winrid 6y agoYeah, after reading this I'll never go under without an anesthesiologist.
- rscho 6y agoWell, I'd say monitoring is the minor issue in such cases. The real issue is that when something happens, and something will happen someday over the duration of a career, anesthesiologists are basically the only ones who can really help. Unfortunately, you have to pay for anesthesia and they will want to do things their way so that's very annoying for other specialists.
- disown 6y ago> Morale of the story, don't let a dentist put you under without an actual anesthesiologist involved. An anesthesiologist says anesthesiologists are indispensable? How shocking. There are plenty of horror stories when anesthesiologists are involved as well. The moral of the story is whenever possible, try and not to be put under.
- sliken 6y agoSure, but if you need it, stack the odds in your favor by having an expert involved.
- rscho 6y agoNot indispensable. They just are the only ones who can react efficiently in case of problem. The complications linked to anesthesia itself are another matter.
- Aeolun 6y agoTheoretically it’s possible for a dentist to have the exact same knowledge as an anesthesiologist though. It’s like when people assume I don’t know anything about databases because I’m currently classified as front-end developer.
- macintux 6y agoKnowledge and experience, however, are two different things. If something goes terribly south, I'd rather have someone managing that who does it daily.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> If something goes terribly south, I'd rather have someone managing that who does it daily. This depends heavily on what "it" refers to. If something goes terribly south, I really don't want to be handled by an anesthesiologist who handles terrible anesthesia-related screwups every day. He's almost certainly causing those screwups.
- darkerside 6y agoAnd if someone hires you to migrate their database and ends up losing data in the process, they deserve what they get.
- Aeolun 6y ago
- novia 6y agoThey used local not general.
- imglorp 6y agoInteresting fact, locals are sometimes not effective. One case is when there's an infection, somehow the bacteria can interfere with dental anesthetic. I learned this during a root canal. The driller gave a little more local, apologized, and said we needed to keep going to get relief. Not pleasant.
- rscho 6y agoIt's not due to the infection itself. Locals are less efficient in acidic environments (such as infected/poorly oxygenated tissue) and if they can't reach the target nerves (such as when one injects in an abcess). One way to improve this is to mix with a base to increase the pH.
- jrockway 6y agoI had a root canal once, and the dentist couldn't get me numb enough. He filled things back in and referred me to a specialist. The specialist cut open the top of the tooth and stuck a needle directly into each root of the tooth... that got me numb. It was a completely painless experience.
- tomcam 6y agoLocal does nothing for me. Everything feels like an incredible electric shock when dental work is done. I now pay several thousand dollars extra for every damn procedure because my dentist is also an anesthesiologist.
- paulcole 6y agoThis is not true in the United States. I work almost exclusively with dentists, many of whom offer general anesthesia in their offices.
- dathinab 6y agoWait she completely passed out with long term damage from a local anesthesia?
- dathinab 6y agoWhich is why a dentist in Germany can give you only a local anesthesia (i.e. you loose feeling in your mouth area but nothing more). If you need a full anesthesia you need to go to a dentist clinic which has a anesthesiologist. Or at last that's is the idea, in practice things might not always be that clean cut.