Yesterday I went to an oral surgeon to get 3 wisdom teeth removed. I had nitrous and a cocktail of 4 different injected drugs that should have made me completely unaware, relaxed, and forget the entire experience.
The nitrous worked in that I had terrible coordination and was half-awake, but I was NOT relaxed and I'm positive I remember the entire experience very clearly. There is a very dark bruise on my arm where they injected the meds, so I strongly suspect they completely missed the vein. I recall every moment of the entire proceeder, from when they started working, when they pulled out the teeth, when they stopped working and when they got me to get up and somehow walk to a chair to relax when it was over. I recall yelling from the pain when they were working on me, so they gave me an insane amount of novacaine which stopped the pain. When I was finally able to relax in the other chair I cried and was shaking very badly.
They insist that the meds work and they don't believe me when I say I was awake the entire time. I often had my eyes closed but I made sure to move my arms and legs to get their attention, but they didn't notice at all. I knew moving too much would botch things so there was only so much I could do.

What do you think? Is it possible they completely missed the vein and the only thing that worked was the nitrous? And I've had nitrous once before, and before it worked fine on it's own, and I was able to relax and not feel pain without any trouble, but it was a different dentist many years ago for a tooth-pulling. This time that clearly wasn't the case. I kind of think I didn't breathe it in hard enough, they didn't tell me to do that so I didn't and just breathed normally.
Or is it just possible the stuff they gave me just didn't work for me? Any ideas?

Wow Sarah...that sounds terrible. I totally believe you because when I had my son earlier this year by c-section the spinal did not work and although I was sort of out of it, I actually felt them start the incision of the c-section. When I told the Dr.'s, naturally the panicked and rushed my husband out of the room and immediately knocked me out (neither one of us were able to see our baby as he was taken from my belly)....I am having 3 wisdom teeth out on Tuesday - were you supposed to be completely sedated?
I guess there are various reasons why these things can happen, but it seems that the doctors never want to actually discuss them. I was able to get more information because my good friend was a labor and delivery nurse at the hospital where I delivered ( I was given more info than I was supposed to have! ;-)
If you have another procedure with anesthesia make sure to let the doctor know what happened this time!!
Hope you are feeling ok...:)

Well it wasn't general anesthesia, I was suposed to be awake, but completely unaware and relaxed. And I was supposed to forget the entire event, which clearly didn't happen. But what's really annoying is the doctors didn't believe me when I said I was awake only because my eyes were closed. I closed them in hopes that it would help me be unaware! But I at least moved my arms and legs in hopes to get their attention.

Otherwise things are going normal. It's the third day since the procedure and I've still got a lot of pain from mostly just one part of my mouth where they said it would be the worst, and it's kinda swollen there. One thing I'm confused about is that by now I should be using heat instead of ice, but the heat hurts a lot! And some one insists I should use Both heat and ice by now, but I think I'm going to stick with ice since heat hurts a lot.

Sometimes it just doesn't work...for whatever reasons. I had mine removed with just novacaine...5 shots worth but I just didn't want the drugs....

Well, at least the vicodin is working alright. Unfortunately I seem to need the highest dose, 2 pills every 4 hours. I tried taking a shower but passed out a few times so I didn't succeed. I'm switching to tylenol #3 and hoping really hard that they'll work, I might end up taking 2 at a time of those as well.

How long does the pain usually last? It still hurts a lot. It's Monday and I got it done Thursday. Most of the swelling is down at least, but I still need pain meds most of the time.
I can eat normal food now (started today) but only when the meds are working.

Alright now I'm really getting worried. It hurts almost as much as the first day. I hope I don't have dry sockects.

And one thing has been bothering me that really makes me mad looking back on it. When I was leaving the dentists office I had the gauze in my mouth for about 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes at most. The gauze had gotten very saturated and needed to be changed. They gave my mother the extra gauze. So I asked the secretary there if it was OK to take it out yet, and she said I could and there's no reason to put more back in. She was adamant about it, saying I definitly did NOT need more gauze.
So I took it out and I had to wait while my mother left and got the car, which took about 20 minutes. I was sitting there bleeding like mad and using up several tissues while waiting until she showed up and I finally put more gauze in. If that stupid secretary didn't say that it wouldn't have happened, and now I learn that this could have led to getting the dry sockets I might have. If it did, and I have it, I'm going to be very, very mad.

[edit] I went back, no dry socket, got worked up over nothing. But I needed more meds anyway cause it's still very painful.