Grounding during dental procedure

*if talk of dental procedures can trigger you, avoid this*

I'm having the last of my wisdom teeth taken out sometime next week. All of my alters know it's happening and some of them are agitated or scared of the idea. I've been able to ground a little in social situations, but this is different. I mean, my teeth are going to be removed with those plyers things, and on me the anesthetic often wears off quicker than most so I often feel pain during.

My main form of grounding is reading a book and I can't do that here. I'm afraid with how agitated some of them are getting, especially Amelia cause she knows there will be pain.

Do any of you have grounding ideas for when someone is in a medical/dental procedure where there will most likely be a little bit of pain?

Could you bring an audio book and listen to that while having the procedure?

I don't have any audio books, but I do have an iPod. I'm not sure if music will work as well as a book, but maybe I can go on a test run before I have the appointment. I'm not sure how I would do that, but it might work. Though, I'd have to check what music I'm listening to cause sometimes it triggers me.

How about headphones & loud music. These dentists are docs so they should have something to help. Mine has a movie screen right there! cool, eh

*Possible Trigger Warning*

We had our wisdom teeth taken out in Mexico, because we didn't have insurance and our grandma thought it'd be a good idea to get it done cheap while we could. And they didn't put us under. And all 4 teeth had to come out and were impacted. And we're pretty unaffected by local anesthetic. Needless to say, a sh*t ton of pain. We got through it by Kat being a f*#king boss and staring at one certain spot in the ceiling, "chanting" to herself in her head a mixture of "There's no pain", and "No pain", sorta putting herself in a trance so she didn't feel the pain, convincing herself kinda, you know? It worked, 'cause she said it only hurt during a couple of tough spots, and then hurt afterwards when her little "trance" thing was broken.

*End Possible Trigger Warning*

I have no idea if that's helpful or not, but thought it might help somehow to share our experience.


I agree with what's been said, though. Is there any way you can have headphones in, or even just one, if they were like the ear bud headphones and have music or something playing? Or maybe you could recite song lyrics to yourself in your head and focus on those or something? Or have like a "safety/comfort" object that's around hand size that you can hold while this is happening?


Best of luck with this.


~Phenix

Maybe you can talk to the one doing it and tell them about that the others are scared? Then maybe he/she can listen and try to make it the best for all of you. I understand if you don't feel comfortable telling though, if you haven't seen him/her before... Just an idea though, because then maybe you won't have to feel like you have to hold feelings in etc (if he doesn't know and you don't want him to know). Otherwise I agree with the rest - try music or something.

Can you tell the dentist you need more anaesthesia than average and ask them to give you a top-up? They shouldn't be allowing you to feel any pain during an extraction.

Thank you all.

I'm not sure if it's my regular dentist who took out one of my molars before. This was a couple years ago, so before my symptoms were really bad, but he talked to me during it all and that helped me.

I'm going to call the dentist office and ask if it's okay to wear headphones.

And to Phenix: Since Amelia is the one who deals with most of the pain (and anger), I'm going to try to talk to her and see if she'll go the "trance route" or something similar this time around. I know I can fall into a trance really easily, but I'm not sure about her. Just in case she comes out.

Again thanks. Talking about it and hearing help is making me less nervous. I've always been terrified of the dentist.

If they don't know, I'd suggest telling the dentist office about the dissociation and the DID. I kind of have to because, due to having been abused by a male dentist (which I told them), visits usually put the body into a state of alarm at some point. I always avoided the dentist, which made things worse. I was able to ask for a female dentist and they were extra nice as I sat there dissociating and switching.

Before I knew I had DID and before my alters became active again, I used to just dissociate -- space out entirely, float away from the body -- at the dentist. I didn't know that's what I was doing but it seemed like my own special power, a mind over matter sort of thing. My ability to do that spacing out now is only a fraction of what it used to be due to the increased communication within. Frankly I miss it, one of the good things for me about dissociating.

When I had wisdom teeth out, my dentist rubbed something to numb the area where the novocaine injections were going to occur, then gave me the shots, and it really didn't hurt much. The extractions themselves didn't hurt at all, there was zero feeling. The only experience was a weird pressure and crunching sound of the pliers pulling the tooth away from the bone (ugh, yeah). I also have a system thing where I steel myself just before pain occurs and consciously "wish it away" or something. For this extraction though, I don't think that happened because I/we didn't flip that wish-away switch.

This very morning in fact, due to a rogue tooth deciding yesterday to go nuclear (pain-wise), I made an emergency trip to the dentist. It was calm most of the way through because I talked aloud to everybody while we were alone that it was perfectly safe now, everyone here was nice, the bad people were dead, nothing's going to happen. Talking aloud is how the clearest communication happens for us and it also serves as a broadcast to the whole group. That worked fine until I was closing up with the receptionist and learned I would have to make an appointment for a root canal with an outside dentist -- who would be a man.

All of a sudden, Max, who's way too young to cover for an experienced middle-aged host, switched in. The receptionist was confused -- so was Max! -- but I was too out of it to come right back. I felt bad, guilty for "making" Max do that and posted a long post here about it being such an anomaly for us. But unless you post something quickly, this board asks you to sign on again so I lost everything I'd written. Not the first time. Nobody inside blamed me for the switch but we were confused why it happened. Jack was the one abused by the dentist, though Max is a protector of sorts from bad men.

My suggestions:
1. See if you can use a little dissociation, spacing out, to your advantage. It may not work in your system.
2. Find out what the procedure should be like, then describe it for everyone. Communicate reassuringly to everyone at different times. Aloud, talking inside, writing. If you have anyone really young or who doesn't have normal language, tell the story in nice images.
3. Confirm whether the only real pain you should feel is the novocaine shots and it will be brief and not bad.
4. To stay present, the old "snap rubber band on wrist when you're fading away" trick works for some. My hand in cold water tends to keep me present. But maybe your dentist would frown on a big pail of ice water? Maybe have a couple pieces of ice in a plastic bag?
5. Ask if anybody wants to take anything along that would make them feel better. If a little told me they want to hold a stuffed animal, I would get over it and do that. I tell myself that right now, of course. In reality I might slip a small one under a sweater or something.
6. Part of EMDR therapy is figuring out a way to segregate and shield littles from painful memories. There's a whole long process of creating a safe place inside for them, making it real, getting them used to it. I wonder if you might be able to practice having them do that so that they are just off somewhere else during the procedure. Everyone in my system is pretty close to the front, there's just no deep inside anymore where people can get lost. But we were still able to begin making a space where they kept busy and felt safe. (We weren't able to continue with that T so didn't get all that far.)

Thank you.

I do sometimes dissociate at the dentist, and music sometimes makes me dissociate, so maybe the combination of that will be good.

I haven't done EMDR yet, I'm actually starting is next Friday, so I'm not entirely sure how to go about that.

Oh, and I'm sorry to hear about your bad dentist experience and having to go to a male dentist.