Any dentists on here able to advise?

[Alwaysthehost]

Is 3 hours a reasonable time for a single wisdom tooth extraction? I had an extremely traumatic extraction which took this long and left me with permanent nerve damage (but that’s a different matter) It was initially said that due to the difficulty of the extraction that the practice manager would have to do it as he has more experience. In the end a less experienced dentist carried it out and I don’t feel he should have. I’m considering complaining but if three hours is normal then obviously I won’t. The other two I had out at the hands of the more experienced guy took ten minutes and barely hurt. This was agonising and has left me petrified of dentists when I never was before. Should you put to sleep for something this long and complicated?

I'm not a dentist but have had teeth issues most of my life. My worst extraction of a wisdom tooth was 44 minutes, at which point he put down his tools, told me he couldn't continue without causing me unnecessary pain and trauma and referred me to have it removed at the dental hospital under sedation.
It can take a while to remove a difficult tooth but I don't think they should have carried on for three hours, no.

Thank you. I didn’t think it should have taken that long. They are telling me it was my decision to keep going therefore they aren’t responsible, I genuinely can’t remember being asked if I wanted to continue but I was in such a state maybe I was and don’t remember? Even if I was and said yes shouldn’t they have been making that call? I do remember having a break and standing up at one point and genuinely wanting to just walk out but somehow I still ended up back in the chair.

I would guess this was a lower wisdom tooth.

It is really difficult because although you can assess a tooth and think you know how it will come out you can get nasty surprises , once you start to take the tooth out.

The problem comes when you are in the middle of a very difficult extraction. You know that if you give up the patient will be in pain , in my area they would have a wait for a specialist to remove it , and often the tooth is quite loose and it feels as though it may be out any minute. It can be difficult to say when to call an end to it and that often depends on the patient .

A dentist will ask if the patient is willing to continue because they know the best result is to get the tooth out , it means patient will ultimately be in less pain and won’t have to attend again. The other factor is fatigue , pain and backache in the dentist and nurse as to how long they can continue and stress from cancelling other patients who are due in and have to be cancelled because of over running by so much.

That amount of time is not ideal , but sometimes difficulties with getting someone numb enough , having to stop to let everyone rest etc will mean sometimes difficult tooth extractions take a long time .

Thank you, this makes a lot of sense, it’s just the perspective I need. I think perhaps then I won’t complain, I just wasn’t sure if this was something that happened but knowing it does is good.