Dentist

[Besswess88]

I had two fillings yesterday and the dentist continually asked my to move my tongue.

Is thar not the job of the dental nurse? I am 47 and have never ever had this before.

Stressful situation in itself, she hadn’t numbed me and I couldn’t hear her through the noise and her mask, I was concentrating on not freaking out, not where my bloody tongue was.

I found this really difficult and she said she couldn’t smooth it off more as didn’t want to risk damaging my tongue as I was unable to keep it in the right place.

Anyone else had this or is my dentist a loon?

She made me feel like an absolute idiot when I was really nervous anyway 🙈

Erm, your tongue was in the way, so your dentist was asking you to move it. I am not sure what is wrong with that.
Does it matter that it was the dentist asking, and not the nurse?

I didn’t care who asked.

Previously the dental nurse has always held it out of the way with one of the tools or thd suction thing.

I have a lot of fillings and have never been asked this before. About as much as I could concentrate on remembering to breathe.

When people are stressed/nervous/tense tongues can become like boa constrictors and holding them out the way can take a lot of effort and give you quite bad hand cramp - honestly it’s no joke - sometimes you have to hold the mirror with a whole fist or the suction with 2 hands. Much easier if patients just keep them out the way…

Did you tell her you weren’t numb? You’d have been less stressed if your anaesthetic had worked.

She wasn’t even attempting to hold my tongue out of the way though, she was just using the suction thing to suck the liquid away, and she was working on two different sides of my mouth at the same time.

It has put my off going back tbh, I was stressed and I felt she was getting shitty with me.

Previously she has offered to sedate me, but didn’t this time and then didn’t even numb me so I was really nervous of sudden pain.

She sounds like a poor dentist.

I’m a very nervous patient and coincidentally had a filling repaired today.

We had a full hour booked in case I needed more time, he let the anaesthetic work for a good 10 mins, explained everything and told me what to expect.

I didn’t feel a thing.

Did he expect you to hold your tongue out of the way?! 🙂

There are some areas of the mouth which can be more tricky to drill and fill than others which is perhaps why you’ve not noticed it with other fillings. Also the disposable suction tips can be more flimsy these days than the older sturdy ones that we autoclaved (cleaned) so that can mean the nurse can’t control the tongue as well. Some tongues as a pp said are very difficult to control, I’ve noticed some people really tense up their tongue rather than just letting it flop or try to kind of stick it to the top of their mouths which is a bit of a pain, I once had a patient who I could only scale/treat his lower back teeth by getting him to hum constantly, which held his tongue down! Once I’d figured this out it was easy so we did it every time- new nurses were a bit wtf but my lovely patient and I didn’t care as it got the job done!

Depends where in the mouth the filling is, the tongue is incredibly strong. So sometimes depending on location it's entirely holding the tongue out of the way or protecting your airways with the suction.

We are always doing our best, maybe the dentist doesn't like the nurse getting in the way with the suction.

One of my old dentists used a drape in the mouth, so only the teeth they were working on were exposed. Tongue was hidden under it.

@Besswess88 I wasn’t asked to but my natural instinct is to keep it out of the way so not sure that’s helpful.

We are always doing our best

I don’t want to be a cow but you’re not ALL always doing your best and saying so undermines people with genuine problems who have received poor treatment.

I’m sure you do, mine certainly did today, but the two I saw before didn’t hence significant issues I now have to have corrected at great expense.

OP is clearly anxious and that may well be irritating or difficult to manage but a good dentist will deal with the issues to mitigate that.

What a surprise another rude dentist.
They have tools to keep the tongue away, your dentist was one of the many shitty ones out there. Sorry about your rotten experience, it's not you it's them.