Originally Posted by Adairable
It really did help me that he made me face my fears....
You're braver than I am. I want gas, the shot, and a blindfold.... just let me sleep while you do whatever the heck you need to do to make me feel better. You're the dentist, don't try to teach me to be one. That's my take on it.
Now for my long promised story...
Several years ago my goofy dog threw his head up when we were playing and smashed my top front tooth. It cracked vertically from top to bottom. So, after a few months, root canal time.
So I get the shot to deaden it. Dentist tells me, "if you feel any pain let me know by raising your hand". Now, I've been to this dentist sense I was 6 (have small mouth. Dentist pulled all of my baby teeth at various times to allow adult teeth to come in normally... he and I are old buds...) so the dentist knew me and knows I don't fake. He touches the tooth and my hand goes up.. he gives me another shot and waits.. then he comes at the tooth again. In a few minutes my hand goes up... (repeat 3-4 more times)
So the dentist is stumped... he says "I can't figure out why he is still feeling pain to his assistant". He gets out his little mirror and hook and starts playing around in the tooth. Then he says "oh... there's the problem" and I feel a stab of pain, then nothing. He pulls the hook up to me and on it is this little stringy thing. He says "see, there was still a helathy nerve there we hadn't gotten. Should be better now". I nearly lost it... Don't pull a nerve ending out of my jaw and show it to me... just fix it and move on, hehe.