Hey everyone, I had a gum graft done today. I had it done at a highly-renown school of dentistry. It's my first gum graft, and my third time under IV sedation. The drugs they used for IV sedation were the same every time, fentanyl some amnesiac.

Due to dental anxiety I've always been a nervous wreck by the time the drugs are administered. Extremely high heart rate, uncontrollable shaking, chattering of the teeth, etc. Both times I received IV sedation, they pushed a single vial in the IV, I felt chills, I blacked out, and I came to after everything was done (with one or two 3-second memories in between).

This time, the anesthesiologist pushed a syringe-full of the drug mix in, and I felt some localized chills in my arm... and nothing. My BPM was unchanged and I was still trembling like crazy. They ended up injecting FOUR vials of the mix, I experienced only a very slight reduction in anxiety and no memory loss. They ended up starting the operation regardless and I basically felt a lot of pain through the local anesthetic, had a panic attack, was sobbing uncontrollably and grabbing the anesthesiologist's hand in the middle of the procedure, shaking, all because I realized the "IV sedation" I had purchased (and NEEDED for my own emotional sake) was never going to kick in.

I remember the anesthesiologist telling me after I started crying and tears were streaming down my face that I needed to focus on relaxing and to "stop fighting it". I obviously couldn't help it.

The anesthesiologist injected two more vials during the operation while I was freaking out, but I think at some point he gave up and just made me ride it out. The attending doctor allowed me to grip her hands and helped coach me through my panic and sobbing while they finished up. Afterwards, I was sobbing uncontrollably while they wheeled me out to the parking lot, because I was totally emotionally unprepared to go through this with basically 10% of an IV sedation.

What I'm trying to figure out is if this is just some sort of student mistake, or if certain providers have way more diluted drug mixes. Was this because it was a dental school, rather than a practice? I remember the anesthesiologist saying to the attending doctor, "I've already gave him like 25ml total" when I was hyperventilating. Does this sound like a lot of volume for IV sedation?

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think 🙏