Tomorrow I’m having a lot of fillings removed and replaced, some of them are quite big. I also have a lot of dental trauma so I get extremely anxious at the dentist. My dentist says I can have laughing gas, will this really help my anxiety a lot? I’ve never had laughing gas so I just don’t know, I also don’t know if laughing gas here is weaker than say in the US?
Anyway, please tell me about your experiences with this here, I just don’t know what to expect. Thank you!
26 comments
I can’t speak for laughing gas in Japan. I assume quantity doesn’t matter much so shouldn’t be much different than us if any. That said I’ve had it once in the US and it’s the best experience I ever had. I felt an asteroid could crash in front of me at the time and I wouldn’t care
It will make you go wwwwwwwwwwww though, so be ready for that.
Get on the nangs, no regrets.
I’ve never had it in Japan but I’ve had it twice in Canada.
Found out that it doesn’t work for everyone.
The second time I had it I told the nurse about my first experience and how it didn’t work on me. The nurse laughed and said “sure” and then asked me to count backwards from 100. When I got to 50, that’s when she agreed that it didn’t work for me.
So… It’ll probably be great, but it doesn’t work on everyone.
hopefully they are not just removing them because they are amalgam, they have to be replacing with something superior and not the regular white filling garbage because of the size of the void.
When was the last time you saw a dentist? Apparently the technology has advanced so much that they can go super little pain mode, or so I heard. Laughing gas, why not?
I’ve had it, but in a hospital setting, because I couldn’t find a regular clinic that would do it. I too have something of a phobia. Had to go to a dental university to get the gas. As I recall, they did a gas and local injection combo. Recommend going with someone who can make sure you get home safely because you’ll still be woozy afterwards. Be prepared that the friend might mention later that you said a lot of weird stuff while you were coming back around!
I’ve had nitrous oxide before, and it doesn’t really make you laugh per se…but it does create a sense of euphoria…you won’t really care much about what’s going on.
I was a dental tech in the United States Air Force for 15 years, so I have lots of experience with various dental procedures from cleaning teeth to oral surgery, and did a stint in Iraq as a facial trauma tech.
I have been out of the service for almost 10 years, and the dentist I go to uses resin fillings…amalgam just isn’t used as much outside of the military (as far as I know now)…resin fillings don’t last as long as amalgam, but there are it’s advantages and disadvantages…resin fillings tend to stain based on coffee, smoking, or wine usage…and resin fillings are also not as temperature conducting as amalgam…
Hope your visit goes well!
I feel ya. I have pretty serious dental anxiety (multiple extractions, two sets of surgery as a kid, years of braces and headgear, etc.). After adulthood, back in the States I never went to a dentist unless absolutely necessary and even then they’d turn the gas up to 11 and just let me float away (which frankly, is fine by me).
Here in Japan, I’ve had both good and bad experiences. Firstly, the dentists break up any work into tiny individual visits, so it takes 4-5 appointments for nearly anything of substance. I get why (it’s an insurance/payment thing), but for those of us with “issues” with the dental office, it sucks.
My good experience was when I had my wisdom teeth extracted. The dentist was a friend of a friend and had studied in the USA. Also, as I found out later, he is/was a serious player in the faciomaxillary surgery field. He was liberal with the gas and anesthesia. I felt nothing and he was done so fast I couldn’t believe it. When I went back a few weeks later for the 2nd one, I actually timed him and it was literally 4 minutes from first incision to closing stitches. It was INSANE. So, that was the good experience.
The bad experience was when my wife basically begged me to go and get a check-up/cleaning. We no longer live near the previous dentist, but she found a place that had gas and we made an appointment. They said it would take 3-5 visits. Each time they barely even turned on the gas (and so I was not at all “mellowed” by it). They kept calling someone over and fiddling with it, and I’m pretty sure that they didn’t really know how to work the machine. Likewise, on more than one occasion the main dentist had to come back and top me up with anesthesia because it was painful (not,”this feels weird and I’m gonna interpret it as pain” but “that made me involuntarily jerk my head and wince”), but I just gripped the armrests and tried to “gaman” my way through it. By the third visit, the anxiety had built up so much over the past few weeks, that halfway through I broke down in a full on meltdown, sobbing like a child in the chair and needing 10-15 minutes to compose myself before they could finish. I told my wife I wouldn’t go back unless she found somewhere that would crank the gas all the way up so that I could be in la-la-land when the shit hit the fan.
Good luck, I hope they give you the good stuff.
I would definitely just take for the giggles
Nitrous Oxide is very safe to use! Your dentist will mix it with oxygen, and you will feel relaxed during the procedure, and the ‘high’ will go away right after.
It’s always important to tell your clinician how you are feeling and the severity of your anxiety so they can help you and modify the procedure to accommodate that. If you have a way you can tell your dentist on a scale 0-10 of your dental fear that might help them and you.
It sounds like they have already taken steps to put you at ease. If you are afraid the sounds of the procedure might bother you, you could also ask them if it’s OK if you wear headphones or listen to music?
It’s super fun.
From speaking to people who have used it in childbirth, you can still feel everything happening but you don’t really care. So if they combine it with a local anaesthetic you should be good.
I lived in Japan and also had dental anxiety from bad experiences. My Japanese dentist(trained in the USA) explained to me that Japanese generally use less Novacaine than Americans use. She asked me what I preferred. I went full on American…I’m not a tiny Japanese person. Over the course of 1 year she replaced everything in my mouth, did root canals, crowns and a bridge(my mouth was a mess). She really helped me with my dental anxiety.
I felt like I was melting.
I had severe dental anxiety from bad experiences in the US, and my dentist (Saitama) gave me nitrous for my first cleaning, as well as any time I need work done (have had a few fillings and one wisdom tooth removed). Combined with the injections (done after the gas has started working), I have painless experiences there and am so grateful. I love the nitrous. Feels good and takes my anxiety away, but then no lingering or negative effects once it’s switched off. I see colours in the lights and hear music instead of the tools. I ride my bike home after, totally lucid. Highly recommend and hope all goes well for you!
dame I never had this. Saw it only in old movies. But my dentist already knows that I’m the chillest patient. How can I get it?
I had laughing gas in the US so that’s all I can comment on but I have horrible anxiety and was having a panic attack. It absolutely calmed me down. All my anxiety went away. There was still some pain but I honestly didn’t care. I was totally unbothered. As someone else said, an asteroid could crash in front of me and I probably wouldn’t have cared. Ahaha.
Oh man! You are gonna find it so funny! And you won’t know why but it’s gonna be a total gas…
Laughing gas is the tits, honestly it feels like you’re being kneaded and twisted like those big globs of taffy.
I was so grateful for everything. The dentist for choosing the profession to help me that day. The assistants for handling such a gruesome job. It was truly divine that all that come together to help me in that great time of need.
I’m 57kg and had some dental treatment under laughing gas. It worked good enough to go through and was able to ask a dentist to up the dose during the treatment. I found I was crying when they took the mask off though. I went Sotokanda Dental clinic Tokyo. Good luck on the appointment!
It’s widely used here as a recreational drug in my country. Pretty safe overall so it’s like the equivalent of bathsalt during the 80s (or so?). If used correctly you will feel all numb and euphoric and all muscles relaxed. I had five teeth removed when I started wearing braces and to this day I still am upset with the fact that my dentist didn’t use laughing gas on me when he was removing my teeth💀
What’s different from my US experience is that here they make you stay until it’s out of your system. They give you a place to lay down, make sure whoever drove you comes in to keep you company, and you don’t leave until you’re feeling yourself again, which can take an hour or so on gas or intravenous drugs
Every dentist I’ve been to here has told me it was outlawed.
Some dentist went into his clinic in his free time to huff the nitrous.
They found him dead.
The anesthetic that they inject is really good. I’m surprised though that they would do a lot a one time. Usually they do one or two at one visit.