Novocaine is for wimps!
Apparently, Novocaine is for wimps? As a result of not flossing basically my whole life, I seem to have developed some cavities, and my dentist recommended that he fill them (and charge me for it? lol, a bit self-serving there, but, it makes sense). So, I got 2 of them filled today, and, he wanted to numb my jaw, which is standard procedure. But, I decided I disliked the idea of the painkiller more than I disliked the idea of feeling the dental work being done... so against his better judgment, I said I'd skip the biochemicals. So, like 2 minutes in, I was still waiting for him to get to the real drilling (because it felt just like it did when my teeth were cleaned a month ago, so I assumed he was doing prep-work), when he told me that I was doing great, and that he had actually been drilling for a while now. It, like, tickled a little bit, but otherwise I barely noticed! The worst it got was maybe half as bad as a bad sunburn... I've had sprains that hurt a lot worse--to be fair, sprains and sunburns are a different type of irritation than the tickling of a dental drill, and having this piece of vibrating metal inside your tooth and being able to feel it is a mildly weird experience... but still, I'm trying to compare levels of intensity. When they blasted the cold water on my teeth to clean off the residue, that actually hurt worse than the actual drilling! So anyway, he was clearly impressed. When I was all done, he said if I told people that I'd had a filling (2 of them actually) without anesthetic I should mention that these were real, normal fillings, nothing trivial. And he seemed to take it for granted that my other fillings could also be done without anesthetic. Of course, if the next 2 fillings for some reason actually hurt like somebody cutting off my leg, then I reserve the right to wimp out at that point, but, otherwise, the anesthetic seriously doesn't seem necessary. Or, I have a good dentist. Or both.