Yep that also sounded weird to me. I had, IIRC, three of my wisdom teeth removed as a teenager, I was living in Italy back then. I think two of them in a single session. General anaesthesia wasn't even an option, the whole thing happened in a normal dentist cabinet with a local anaesthesia to the relevant half of the mouth. I distinctly recall the dentist complaining that for one of the teeth my roots were particularly strongly attached to the bone, and he had to push and lean on it, _hard_; it didn't really feel painful, except that my jaw was aching on the opposite side (the mostly-non-sedated one) due to the pressure he put on it.In fact, I think people and doctors alike tend to sedate much less in Italy - maybe not completely unjustified from a few things I've read in this thread. Back then, the normal drilling & filling tooth cavities mostly happened without any anaesthesia at all, local or otherwise. Frankly, that was quite painful, whenever the drilling happened to touch a nerve, and I really don't feel like experiencing it again :-) and I think at least this changed since.
tessellated|1 year ago
This is logical and within my experience.
Once an old dentist lady told me that she noticed patients complaining about pain on the other side in this situations. She didn't have an explanation then.