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There really needs to be something like this. When we look back on dentistry in 50-100 years we will be amazed how barbaric it was! Ouch!
by benjaminwootton 5y ago
There really needs to be something like this. When we look back on dentistry in 50-100 years we will be amazed how barbaric it was! Ouch!
- nemo44x 5y agoI think about this fairly often. When getting a root canal (it doesn’t hurt!) it’s sort of odd to see in this day and age the tools they use.
- monoideism 5y ago> (it doesn’t hurt!) It doesn't hurt for you. Some people, including myself, have had root canals that have almost caused worse pain than when I was in the ICU.
- Invictus0 5y agoThat's the parent's point: the tools and methods have changed so that now it no longer hurts.
- imglorp 5y agoEven now, sometimes it does hurt, plenty. Local anesthesia can be somehow negated by bacterial infection, something involving the pH getting altered. My endo apologized but had to keep drilling to reach relief.
- dawnerd 5y agoI had to suffer through one as well. They have me the max number of shots after being on antibiotics and the pain was still unbelievable. Worst part… the dentist messed up and the whole root canal was for nothing.
- monoideism 5y agoThis was 5 years ago. We're all different. Some people respond poorly to root canals, some feel moderate pain, some feel absolutely no pain. And to be clear, the pain has been after my root canal, not during (even though ostensibly, the nerve is gone). My worst root canal was infected, but the endodontist claims that it usually doesn't cause that much pain (perhaps, but not for some people). My mother and uncle have had the same issues. My father has never had issues.
- Waterluvian 5y agoYeah it took me decades to learn that the pain of getting a cavity filled isn't normal. I thought the freezing helped and that the ice pick jab causing lightning of pain down my spine was what everyone suffered. A dentist finally slowed down. Noticed my tears. Asked. Had a conversation. Tried freezing me in other places. Worked perfectly. She guessed that my nerves are anatomically weird.
- tomcam 5y agoI feel your pain, literally. No local anesthetic works at all for me. I need to be put under general anesthesia. Costs an extra $6000 or $7000.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago>Costs an extra $6000 or $7000. I'd find that more painful than the treatment.
- tomcam 5y agoWorth it to me. Dental pain is incredibly rough for me. Not sure why. And I have lots of experience with high levels of pain.
- mattlondon 5y agoI had the same for years, and eventually just said "get on with it" without any pain killers and basically just try to withstand the pain as much as possible. Eventually one dentist suggested trying the injection 15-20 mins before the filling started. I'd go in, get a jab, then go back out and wait while they saw another patient. Now there is no pain at all. I could literally fall asleep in the chair. What a difference.
- tomcam 5y agoVery cool! Doesn’t work for me.
- 5y ago
- EMM_386 5y ago> It doesn't hurt for you. Some people, including myself, have had root canals that have almost caused worse pain than when I was in the ICU. I am just going to have the tooth pulled. They argued either try to save it, or just have it taken out. I dread dentists, and especially endodontists/root canals. There are enough reports of severe pain and I want no part of it, unless I go the expensive sleep dentistry route.
- cableshaft 5y agoI've had two root canals done with local anesthetic and no real problems. I was real nervous for the first one and went to a specialist and they used a lot of local anesthetic that I couldn't feel anything but a little pressure. But the second time I just had my doctor do it with his anesthetic, and it wasn't much worse than a filling for me. A little unpleasant but not unbearable. On the negative side, either that or some other dental work I had done close to the same time must have damaged a nerve and now I haven't been able to really taste anything in the front half of my tongue the past three years (still can on the back of my tongue, at least, thankfully).
- 0xbadcafebee 5y agoYou don't ask for drugs? Ask for drugs. I always get Xanax and it basically puts me out through the whole thing. I have, err... had a lot of root canals. I'd think the bigger concern with a root canal is the not-insignificant likelihood they will break your jaw. Or not get the whole root out, causing an infection and need to get the procedure done again. (Never have a dentist do your root canal, folks)
- kstrauser 5y agoI generally don’t need pain meds for dental stuff. But if I thought for a moment that I’d be feeling any pain at all, yes, give me all the meds. I’m not proud: given a choice between pain and no pain, I’ll take the second option any day of the week. I know that some people have specific reasons for avoiding meds, but absent that, why put yourself through it? You don’t get bonus points for suffering.
- knicholes 5y agoIf not you dentist, then who would do the root canal?
- bruckie 5y agoTypically an endodontist, at least in the U.S.
- Frost1x 5y agoI used to work with a few orthopedic surgeons over a couple years and discovered a lot of the tools used during surgery for bones or hard materials in the body really aren't all that different than what you'd find at a hardware store. Usually tools are a bit more precise, materials are a bit more stringently regulated, and everything is typically well sterilized but when it comes to the physical mechanics, they're about the same. Drills, saws, hammers, all that good stuff. The main difference is you're usually not watching it for a variety of reasons unlike many dental procedures. And the tools are in the hands of a literal surgeon.
- Fomite 5y agoWeirdly, knowing this has helped me. My mind can imagine all kinds of horrific things happening with the sound and feeling of dental tools, so it's rather reassuring to be "Oh, yeah, that's what a glorified Dremel would sound like."
- useryman 5y agoAlso, knowing why all of the power tools are pneumatic, rather than any other kind of power helps. They need to be small, and stay cooled well.
- xyzzy123 5y agoI have a friend who needed a major extraction at the panicky start of COVID, in Australia. The dentists weren't allowed to use drills. I'm not sure why but something to do with aerosolizing. It turns out the things dentists use when they're not allowed to use drills are chisels.
- jessaustin 5y agoMost extractions are done without drilling. That's really only necessary when the tooth needs to be sectioned, or if there is a bony impaction. Usually a bit of movement with forceps or elevators is all that's required. But yeah, sectioning a tooth with chisels sounds pretty bad. I think I would try to avoid that situation. I'm not sure why a dentist would even have an instrument that could be described as a "chisel".
- nemo44x 5y agoThere are electronic files today for root canals but I had an endodontist once that still used a series of hand files. So weird to think about.
- rsync 5y ago"When we look back on dentistry in 50-100 years we will be amazed how barbaric it was!" Nothing will eclipse the barbarism and "effectiveness" of spinal disc treatments such as spinal fusions.
- catillac 5y agoI’m unfamiliar with this topic, what do you mean? I thought spinal fusion was just a medical procedure to connect a couple vertebrae for some reason, but I thought the downside was a little less flexibility. I wasn’t tracking it being especially barbaric.