Re: Nitrous: What can I expect?
From: Josiah Cod (jcod_at_scaly.cod)
Date: 08/06/04
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Date: Fri, 06 Aug 2004 13:24:06 GMT
Gregory Bailey wrote: "as I've gotten older, leading me to view the dentist's chair in pretty much the same terms as the electric
chair."
I sympathize with you, George : I have reacted with fear, panic, and anxiety related to dental work from as far as I can remember. I
am a very strong man physically and psychologically, can endure extremes of heat, cold, and exercise that few people can; I can and
have worked with violent people in my long-ago career as a pyschiatric social worker, and I have real ability to keep my cool in
emergency situations. But something about dental work ... well, it "touches a nerve" as it were; it seems to trigger a deep
non-volitional autonomic nervous system flight-or-fight reaction : in other words, I lose it. I could give you any number of
hypotheses about the source of this "off-the-scale" reaction related to my life-history, some frequent abuse where food was
literally shoved down my throat. And you could look at the concept of "violation of the oral zone" from Freudian, Hornian, Adlerian,
Gestalt, and modern ego-psychological viewpoints ... but whatever explanation it is as real to me, subjectively, as if I were being
actually assaulted. No other medical procedure including major surgery (hip replacement, biopsy) has ever triggered the reaction
that dental work triggers in me : as a result I have avoided dentists and ... guesss what ... have damn bad teeth.
There is one dentist here in Thailand who has been able to do a root canal on me without nitrous; I never thought I could take it. I
think a lot of it has to do with the fact that he is serious meditator, that he is a relaxed and calm and kind person. And I'm sure
some of it has to do with the fact that Dentists in Thailand are not in the deadly embrace of the insurance companies and HMO's and
procedural regulations and paperwork swamp that American medical care is in general which undermine the patient-doctor relationship,
and turn American doctors and dentists into some of the most stressed out people in the world at tragic cost to society.
Can you imagine an American dentist having/taking the time to talk to you for ten to fifteen minutes before starting to work on you
? I'd say he works about half the speed of American dentists (and I mean no slur or insult at all to American dentists by saying
this). And at about one-sixth to one-eighth the cost.
In my American treatments I enjoyed nitrous, and took along my meditation beads and meditated while being worked on. I like the
feeling nitrous gives me of "floating outside my body" and, for me, there is no giggling or loss of control; it's very pleasant.
There was one time of intense stress and trauma in my life where I had some dental work done under nitrous, and I lost control and
wept, but if your gut is full of some strong feeling, almost any substance that dis-inhibits you is going to make it more difficult
to keep that wrapped up.
These are just my opinions, and I completely respect the long devotion and education that leads a person in any country to become a
doctor or dentist.
best, J. Cod
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