Wisdom Tooth Removal

[Jonathan Phelan]

I had my lower right wisdom tooth removed in 2007, I was given the option of local or general anesthetic, I opted for local, I had the gel applied before the injection, it was pain free and straight forward
This year the dentist recommended having the remaining 3 removed
Yesterday I had the upper right removed under local anesthetic, leaving the left 2 to remove in 6 weeks time, The dental surgeon refused the gel, gave me a local anaesthetic, which I don't think kicked in, and after a lot of pulling ripped out the tooth !!!!!!!!
What I would like to know is ......... Do I have the right to insist on a general anesthetic ? As there are 2 more to remove and I don't want to go through that again twice over
Why are they not applying the gel first ? I doubt it's expensive
Do I need to find the local drug dealer and be so high they could do an amputation without me noticing ? !!!!!

 

[MattKW]

A different dentist, I assume?
sure, ask for gel; I don't know why he didn't use it.
Different teeth can present different levels of difficulty to remove, so hard to comment on that. You can ask for IV sedation or GA and see what they say. You might require a referral to an oral surgeon for that.

 

[Jonathan Phelan]

Yes, different dentist from 12 years ago, I did ask for the gel, I think her reply was "You don't need it" Maybe I need to get in touch, sadly there probably wasn't a lot of tooth to get hold of, maybe that was a factor ? GA probably costs the NHS a lot more, with anaesthatista and all that business
Can I insist on a General Anesthetic, can they refuse ?

 

[MattKW]

I don't know how it works under the NHS. But they do have restrictive rules for removing wisdom teeth that would be considered very conservative in Australia and USA. You'll have to ask.