dental surgery question
 

good evening, Is there a minimun amount of time one should remain in the dental office after having surgery with "deep anesthesia?" 10 minutes? 30 minutes? 1 hour? or does it depend on how one feels and how their vitals are?

Hi Flicker,

When you wrote <deep anethesia> did you mean IV sedation?

There is no set time limit as to how long a patient will stay in the office after the surgery. It depends on the type of medications used in the IV, the type of surgery that was done, the patients medical history, vitals and how they feel once they come out of the anesthesia. Sometimes it's 15-30 minutes, sometimes a bit longer. Some patients will be given a protein or energy shake before they leave, others will not. Every surgeons office has their own post surgery protocol that they follow.

Why do you ask? Are you scheduled for oral surgery?

Bryanna

Bryanna, I had the surgery last week, it was called deep anesthesia and I had a cocktail mix of versed and fentanal. All my vitals were normal but I feel they let me out way too soon, especailly when compared to how long I've had to stay in recovery rooms for other procedures with lesser anesthesia such a c-scopes.

After the surgery I wan't even able to walk before they put me in a wheelchair and out the door. I told them I wanted to wait a bit and my friend who took me was worried about driving me when I was like that but they told her I was fine. There was about 5 minutes between waking up in the dental chair and pushing me out the door. While my vitals were normal and nothing terrible happened I'm concerned about the lack of time in recovery. I'm scheduled to have more surgery by this dentist next month and frankly I'm concerned and wonder if I should ask my general dentist to refer me to someone else.

And this might sound kind of petty but I'm also concerned that there was no call from the dental office the next day to ask how I am. I've always had these calls after any other surgery or c-scopes or anything along that line. Years ago I worked in a endodontist office and the first thing we did after settling in was to call previous day patients to make sure they were okay.

Like you say all office have their own protocols, not sure theirs and mine are a good match.

Hi Flicker,

I agree with you..... it sounds like you were rushed out the door.
To try and prevent that from happening, tell them you felt rushed and want to recover a bit longer before they let you leave.

I also agree that a post op call was warranted. It might have been an oversight on their part. So again, tell them you were surprised not to get a call and ask if they routinely do that.

If you were happy with the oral surgery other than those 2 issues, then you may reconsider not changing. Just make your valid concerns known ahead of time.

Bryanna

Thank you Bryanna:) I'd like to think the no call was just an oversight but this is my 4th surgery by this doctor (all others were with local only, no IV)and I've never received a f/u call the next morning, so I think it's the norm for them. Too bad, I wish they had better policies. Thank you for your input it's much appreciated.

Flicker,

I have worked in practices where every patient who had a local anesthetic injection that day, received a phone call the evening of their appointment. Other offices only called when there was surgery done.... and others did not call at all.

My personal opinion is that all patients who meet any or all of the following criteria should receive a follow up call from the dentist or a knowledgeable office clinician:

**Anyone that had taken or been administered medication for anxiety and/or sedation.

**All oral surgery patients.

** Overly anxious and/or had an upsetting dental appointment.

** Patients with complicated dental procedures or those that received a removable appliance to give reassurance or reiterate wearing/cleaning instructions.

Usually the phone call is a few minutes and just enough to put a patient at ease. It can also reveal a potential problem and nip it in the bud before it becomes worse than it needs to be.

Again, feel free to express your concerns to the office manager, the assistant/ nurse and even the surgeon. Not nastily or with aggression but just out of concern for yourself!

Hope your dental surgeries, other than these issues, are going okay for you.

Bryanna