The patient put on a happy face, but in fact, he couldn’t wait to escape the dentist’s office and return to his car to decompress and collect himself in private.

He was shaky, perspired and still somewhat short on breath.  His shirt collar was damp from where his tears had fallen.  He knew he was in no shape to drive.  So he sat, waited and phoned a friend to share his ordeal.

It had been only a one-hour and 20-minute periodontal cleaning appointment, but it felt like an eternity.  In the dentist’s chair he had harnessed all his mental focus to channel his thoughts away from the pain and discomfort.  He thought about nature, white sand beaches and lapping waves. When that didn’t suffice, he created an alternative stream of pain, repeatedly digging his own fingernails into the soft skin under his nail beds – like bamboo shoots.

The feints helped sporadically, but ultimately the stubborn oral discomfort overran these meek defenses and misery triumphed.

How sad that the patient, a well-educated health professional in his own right, hadn’t chosen to avail himself of safe, effective, dental sedation to put him at ease before, during and after his visit to the periodontist. 

Sadder, still, that the patient – me – is the cofounder and president of the world’s largest and most-respected dental sedation training program, DOCS Education .  I knew better and went without oral sedation anyway.

Why?

Because it had been more than a decade since I endured a thorough periodontal visit the old-fashioned way, without the comfort of oral sedation.  And I wanted to learn first-hand whether or not the state-of-the-art of dental pain and anxiety management – without the use of oral sedation – had advanced much over such a long time span.

Obviously, it was an education hard-earned: Pain is still pain.

I must say that the dental hygyenist who cleaned my teeth used impeccable clinical technique.  My discomfort was not her fault.

Indeed, both she and I recognized that one of the four quadrants of my mouth would require some extra attention, so she applied an anesthetic injection there to help numb the pain.  It is the other three quadrants that brought me to tears, literally.

For the record, I’m not a dental chicken nor have I had a lifelong fear of dentistry.  But I do have a low-pain threshold and – like so many others – even a routine cleaning can create severe discomfort for me.

Sitting in the dental chair I thought about how tens of millions of other patients also routinely endure the discomfort I was experiencing, because they have not yet discovered the benefits of sedation dental care.

My jaw was cramping. From all the water in my mouth I had the sense that I was drowning – like being “water boarded.” Although I didn’t cry, tears reflexively streamed down my face and I was embarrassed by them.  And of course, I was in nerve-jarring pain.

In my early professional days before I was trained in sedation dentistry protocols, I frequently wondered why so many of my patients left the operatory without even a “thank you,” especially when I knew I had done such a quality job of care and paid so much attention to my patients’ comfort.

Now, sitting in my car, reflecting on my experience, I realized that like so many of my early patients, I left the dentist’s office not ungrateful, but so focused on holding it together until I was out of observation range that saying “thank you” – even though I felt gratitude, was not my top priority.  Escape was!

So, to everyone who ever fled the dental chair to the privacy and serenity of a parked car, only to twitch at the thought of the ordeal just passed, I share your pain.  Both emotional and physical.

Being a patient is tougher than many of us recall.  Especially, those of us who have come to rely on sedation dentistry to make dental visits anxiety-free.  I do not recommend other dentists or their patients try doing without oral sedation just to share the discomfort that I had.  One educational guinea pig is sufficient.

But on those days when a skeptical fellow oral health professional or even a dental regulator questions you about the necessity of oral sedation as a method of bringing comfort to our patients – suggesting perhaps that other “conventional” methods of anxiety and pain relief are sufficient – please remember this tale and my experience.

What we specially trained sedation dentists provide is comfort and peace of mind to neutralize an experience that for many millions of dental patients is otherwise hellish.

I now know that, again, first hand.