Last time I went to the dentist was about a month ago. And I opted for a tiny pill & everything went fine .
The last time I had Novocain was in 1966. The rookie 2nd lieutenant gave me 6 shots of Novocain & it was very bad experience.
The jerk kept poking me to determine if the area was numb. It was still painful. I told him to give it time for the Novocain to take
effect. But he wouldn’t listen. Too many GIs waiting.
Afterwards in the barracks the whole side of my face & shoulder area was numbed for hours.
The second time, another rookie did a bad clean-up job of my front teeth that later cause an infection which was so swollen I had to have my
front tooth removed. Sad because there was no cavity on my tooth , just a poor job of cleaning.
I opted for gas instead of the shots which I went to a private dentist instead of the military.
Too bad you had such a bad experience, but the military dentists and physicians can be pretty brutal. They are on an assembly line schedule so it's "come on soldier sit and take it". They are officers and you a lowly enlisted man so you've got to follow orders. Most if not all post service dentists end up teaching as they say "if you can't do it you teach it".
As for the infection after cleaning, sounds like due to your understandable fear regular brushing and maintenance is not a high priority as an infection as violent as yours exemplifies. I wouldn't doubt your teeth have some mobility and have infection present around them and the cleaning brought the infection to the forefront which explains why it was removed. I would hope that with all the problems you have you would have all your remaining teeth removed and have false teeth placed which would eliminate your fears and pains.
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