My dentist in California said he had several patients from Eastern Europe and Russia who had dental treatment like this, and their teeth were all mangled from treatment without anesthesia. He had done numerous re-drilling’s and re-fillings and root canals on these patients to deal with decay in teeth that had already been treated in their home countries. They had decay underneath fillings because the original treatment had essentially only gone as deep as the patient could stand. The dentist would drill until the patient screamed stop and then fill the hole, even if that left continued decay underneath.
I can only assume that the second round of treatment in their home countries would be either another round of drill torture or tooth extraction.
> They had decay underneath fillings because the original treatment had essentially only gone as deep as the patient could stand.
In the middle of a root-canal my anesthetic completely wore off. I was able to feel the nerve root in my tooth being twisted up into a metal file and snapped out, along with all the canal filing and packing that happens afterwards. White-hot all-encompassing pain. There's no way any of those patients got a proper job done.
Why not ask for more anesthetic? When a friend went to a dentist for a procedure, she repeatedly asked for more anesthetic until she couldn't feel the pain. I think it took two or three additional injections after the first one before that happened. (It's hard for anesthetics to make their way into the jaw bone, I believe.)
I’ve had a root canal where the anesthesia didn’t wear off but simply wasn’t complete. It was still the most painful thing I’ve experienced. If I needed a root canal without anesthesia I’d just ask for an extraction. No way I’d even attempt a root canal without anesthesia.
I can only assume that the second round of treatment in their home countries would be either another round of drill torture or tooth extraction.