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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2174 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 21, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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so I had the unique experience of being awake during the operation.

Wait what? How is that unique? Over here the only way you'd get sedated is if they have to operate on your entire jaw or something. Even tooth surgery is just good painkillers combined with local anesthetic, so you're lucid during the operation. Basic wisdom tooth removal that doesn't require surgery is just local anesthetic.

Idk man literally everyone I talked to about my wisdom teeth told me they got knocked out for it. I don't know why I got a choice and they didn't.

That's bizarre. I see no reason why you'd need general anesthesia for removing teeth, unless they've come in horribly wrong and it turns into a complicated surgery. But I've heard that in the US it's not uncommon to get all four wisdom teeth removed at the same time, for some reason. Which is bizarre enough in itself but which could explain the need for being knocked out, perhaps.

I was given three choices: novocaine, laughing gas, and general anesthesia. When I tell foreigners this they usually make some remark about Americans being a bunch of wimps who need to be knocked out to have their teeth pulled. I assume this is downstream of the more widespread overuse of painkillers by doctors at that time.

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