[Dailydrool] Anxiety wraps

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

I've now seen two posts in which people have reviewed the anxiety  
wrap as making a noticeable difference but not being completely  
effective. It's made me think about Pavlovian responses and a couple  
root canals I had two summers ago.

The root canals started out with my dentist drilling out two old  
fillings so she could put temporary crowns on the teeth and send me  
to an endodontist for the root canal work. The drilling was  
incredibly painful, and after my fourth injection of novocaine, she  
didn't want to give me any more. But I couldn't stop jerking away  
every time she touched those teeth, which made it hard for her to  
continue. So she decided not to finish the job and sent me to the  
endodontist the next day as an emergency root canal.

I was anxious all the night before about those root canals. If it  
hurt that much to have the fillings dug out even with all that  
novocaine, how much more would it hurt to have the root dug out? I  
slunk into the endodontist's with my tail between my legs and my ears  
pinned way back. It took almost three people to drag me from the  
waiting room into the back room where terrible things happen to good  
people with bad teeth.

The endodontist gave me one numbing injection and a ton of nitrous  
oxide gas, but I was still rigid in the chair, bracing for the pain.  
He gave me some good pokes in the gums to prove to me that the area  
really was well deadened. Then he got to work on the teeth. He was  
right. I was so numb I couldn't feel a thing (so why can't my dentist  
have novocaine that strong?). It was as if he was working on someone  
else's teeth altogether. Yet, every time he started up on that drill,  
I tensed and braced for pain. I spent the entire procedure reassuring  
myself that even though I was hearing the drill, I wasn't feeling a  
thing, really. Relax, relax. Drill sounds but no pain, right? Right.  
Breathe the lovely nitrous oxide.

That's when I realized that I've had enough painful dental work done  
over the last ten or so years that I've been conditioned to equate  
the sound of a dental drill with extreme pain. I hear that drill,  
and, just like Pavlov's dog drools in anticipation of food when he  
hears a bell, my body automatically braces for pain even when it  
feels none at all. I wonder how long it would take for me to be  
reconditioned to the point of not tensing up when I hear a dental  
drill. Not that I have any desire to try it!

So my experience with dental work, pain, and really good novocaine  
has made me think of dogs who've spent years associating thunder and  
storms with really bad feelings and are now in an anxiety wrap, the  
equivalent of being given powerful novocaine. Perhaps the reason  
their anxiety during storms hasn't been completely reduced is that  
they're still conditioned to think of storms as bad even when they're  
actually feeling calmer because of the anxiety wraps they're wearing.  
It'll be very interesting to hear how they seem to do during storms  
six months or a year from now, whether wearing the wraps will  
eventually recondition their response to storms.

I wish anxiety wraps had been an option (or had been an option I knew  
about) when our Jane Basset was still alive. She would come  
completely unglued during a storm. She'd shake, pant, pace, drool,  
and either cling to my ankles or search the house for a safe hiding  
spot, usually behind a toilet, under a bathroom sink with a ten-inch  
clearance, or behind my printer in my computer cabinet. We called it  
The Vapors, as in, "It's thundering, so Jane's got the vapors again."  
She was so sensitive that she could pick up on storms in the next  
county and react to those as well. Nothing we did or didn't do made  
any difference. She was perfectly miserable during storms. I miss her  
every day, but I never wish her back when we're having storms because  
she hated them so much. It's wonderful to have bassets now who don't  
bat an eye during a thunderstorm!

Elizabeth