Root Canal Treatment Advice Needed

*question mixed with experience/story

I'm in the UK using an NHS dentist surgery To give you adequate context to the situation I need to run you back about 10 years. I had a root canal done when I was about 11/12 and it was the most excruciating pain I have ever been in. After that treatment I couldn't see any dentists for close to 9 years.

I had to have a piercing surgically removed from my lip in 2024 and it was found after slicing me with a scalpel that I'm lidocaine resistant which is important to know for my prior root canal, I'd had next to no anesthetic and they plowed through until they finished the work.

Armed with this knowledge I found a private dentist (because NHS dentists are like gold dust) because I had a tooth giving me unending aggravation, I had two extractions there and they were beautiful cannot complain except at the price which just isn't feasible long term.

Flash forward to right now, my dad manages to book us into an NHS Dentist because I've again got a tooth giving me jip and it needs sorting. I don't find out until I arrive that it's the same practice who did my root canal 10 years ago and didn't twig that standard anesthetic doesn't work on me.

I low-key had a panic attack but conceded to try because it's a new dentist etc etc. The first appointment went okay in that it took a fat minute to get me numbed up to the point it stopped being excruciating when he was putting the instruments in but once I was numb I could sit there for about an hour and a half. I didn't come away with the most amount of confidence in him though. (This was last week)

Yesterday I turn up for my second appointment to hopefully complete it (I've been told I've got one canal that's short and it's causing a bit of a problem) and he tells me we shouldn't need anaesthetic and I remember that from last time, the second appointment didn't hurt necessarily. However he starts working and I'm telling him shits hurting and he's sort of dismissive. I ask for anaesthetic, he gives it, I say I'm not overly numb and he just tries again anyway and I'm like dude this shit hurts can you wait a minute. So same thing takes a while to get numb but once I am it's okay. Yesterday I was low-key feeling more pain than last week but it was bearable UNTIL he irrigated it with I think he said Sodium Hypochlorite and the first time it burned but I could manage, the second time I can't describe the pain radiating down my jaw bone. He said sometimes the solution gets under the tooth and it's nothing to worry about.

I've now got a weird bleachy/foul taste in my mouth I can't shift, I was swollen like a hot air balloon and still am a little and the pain in that area is worse than first appointment even though this one was shorter.

He still couldn't finish the RCT, he filled it, took and an x-ray and it wasn't right so he ripped out the filling and that's when the painful irrigation happened. During the procedure he said 'Root canals are not my cup of tea, I'd much rather extract' and yet he convinced me to have the RCT to save the tooth as I wanted extraction. So I came out with even less confidence in him and a real fear of going back a third time.

Which essentially now leads me into me questions am I overreacting based on what happened to me 10 years ago? What actually happened to me during the root canal that caused that burning and is it something I need to worry about? (I could Google that but I don't wanna be terrified if I don't have to be) Should I look for a different dentist in the same practice, stick with that dentist or seek an entirely different practice ?

Thank you all in advance, if there's any other info you need that I've left out just ask !