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.
I would suggest finding a new dentist of possible. Let your new dentist know these things before work begins. Your dentist should be going above and beyond to make sure you feel safe in such a vulnerable position, not the other way around. The opportunity to get frustrated with your dentist should have never been presented and their bottom line shouldn’t govern your pain. I have had 22 Novocaine shots for a complicated extraction because it only lasts about a half hour. And if you had the max then your dentist should have been using epinephrine along side it. Whatever it takes to make sure your experience isn’t traumatic.
Also, your friend was out of line for bringing up a private patient experience that they weren’t a part of and the dentist was inappropriate for bringing it up to them.
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