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

    There’s a Serial podcast series called The Extractions. A nurse stole pain killers and replaced it with saline. I doubt that’s happening here, but you could raise the issue that they might have faulty meds. Sorry to post multiple comments. This is a topic near and dear to me because it hits close to home.