EDIT; I can’t reply to everyone individually but thanks for all the suggestions! Opiates are out of the question, doctors here will only prescribe those in terms of absolutely extreme suffering or end of life care. I also don’t particularly feel interested in developing a hard drug habit. Diclofenac and such are available but also only on separate prescriptions, I’d have to visit another doctor for that. I’m well stocked on paracetamol & ibuprofen, and apart from that, lots of ice cream, pudding & soup :)
Also, since a fair few people seem to doubt the veracity of my story, here’s the 22 extracted teeth (the other 10 were already gone in previous extractions).
My stepfather has constant, disgusting mouth infections because he eats terribly, never cares for his teeth, and smokes. Bro had a pocket of puss inside his mouth that made him look like he was keeping a golfball in his mouth. He won’t go to a dentist because he claims his mouth can’t be numbed. He says it just doesn’t work. In reality, he’s just scared. Man never goes to a doctor for anything because he’s scared.
This is a thing. My wife has to get lots of extra shots of the gum numbing stuff. Her first dentist as a kid didn’t believe her that she could still feel and it caused her huge trauma.
I’m guessing your wife might be a redhead and/or has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome as both groups are resistant to certain types of local anesthesia. I have the latter and novocaine does next to nothing for me without using massive volumes.
Assuming I’m vaguely correct, if she hasn’t done so already, consider trying articaine, bupivacaine, or mepivacaine. I explained my situation to my dentist and he allowed me to trial each before jumping into dental work. Articaine was the first we tried and it works great for me.
Here’s the article I provided as evidence I’m not just crazy: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6834718/