The lesser known pleasures of having chronic anxiety

[ThePiper]

I’m basically just here to vent but I know a lot of us have anxiety problems in this community so I know many will understand. Being someone who lives with daily anxiety that pervades their body regardless of what their day is like can result in strange discoveries.I’m not someone with a dental phobia although I have had my fair share of bad experiences such as filling material in the eye, incomplete fillings that needed to be redone, etc. so when I have to go to the dentist I am not freaking out but I can find myself in a bad mood about it.

Anyway today I needed a single run of the mill cavity filled and it was supposed to be a quick in and out. They gave me a little novocaine shot and said the worst is over. Next thing I know they are pretty much driving an Icepick into my mouth, immediate recoil and sweating bullets. Turns out I needed 4 more shots in the same corner of my mouth including the jaw shot that numbs your tongue, with them checking each time to see if I could bare the drill again and acting like they were in complete disbelief that I could still feel it. and even after that I still had wincing pain, but tried to hide it because I know that having that many deep injections in my mout can leave me with pain in the jaw/face for days after.

Afterward, I Did a little googling and it turns out things like adrenaline/anxiety cause novocaine to fail. Go figure.

thanks for reading, I just needed to vent and would like to hear if others have similar stories about How their neurochemistry has made them into a bit of a medical/societal oddity.

 

[Kavaguy]

I am sorry to hear about your experience; that must have been so stressful. As a dentist, I have a few patients who have a really tough time getting numb. It’s almost always the lower teeth which are more difficult to get numb. If only the public were more familiar with kava, I would love to serve it to my patients before their dental appointments.