Went in for a crown the other day. The dentist got called away to a different patient midway through. Anesthesia started wearing off. Dentist took her time with the other patient. I was fairly tensed up by the time she got back. I was doing my best to balance being polite with limiting how much the pain affected me. The longer she was gone, the less I was able to pretend I wasn’t in pain. My strategy for pain management is tensing inwards, and I hadn’t raised my voice or cursed. I was waiting for my turn.

A friend who works there later told me that the dentist said I scared her and she thought I was going to harm her. I can’t seem to make sense of that. I can’t think of what threatening behavior I displayed, unless dentists getting attacked by patients is just a thing they have to deal with.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    I have ginger facial hair. My dentist told me that’s why I need more pain meds. She’s the only dentist I’ve ever had who doesn’t hurt me and it’s because she’s willing to dose me way beyond normal.

    I also get incredible anxiety waiting at the dentist (even with her, who I absolutely adore) because of the uncertainty of when the procedure will end.

    • EmptySlime@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My wife is the same way. Not ginger that we can tell but the pain meds and anxiety are pretty similar. She’s gotta throw back a full Klonopin to not have ridiculous anxiety in the dentist and still needs multiple vials of numbing to do anything. Took her forever to find a dentist that actually listened to her about the Novocaine not working well and to actually get proper numbed before dental work.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If she’s got any ginger family that’s probably it. A single allele of red hair gives you the drug resistance, pain resistance, and some red facial and body hair. The second makes the head hair red