Dentist - I'm terrified!!!

MarilynMonroe_2

My dentist tells you to put your hand up if you want him to stop - and he does if you do.
If you get a new dentist ask them if they will stop if you put your hand up and get them to promise they will, then youre learning to trust them which is the main thing. xx

in_the_Cotswolds

pearl123 wrote: »

Mechanic - when I said nearly everyone has a dental phobia I meant on the dedicated dental website which I'd put a link up to. I didn't mean in life!

However, I will edit my post to make it clearer.

Sorry, didn't mean it like that. I think I've been lucky with my teeth. Nearly everyone I've spoken to doesn't like going to the dentist. I'm also ok with injections and having blood samples taken. I've nearly had to catch someone in front of me when he seen the needle!!

dizziblonde

The biggest thing I've found as a massive dental phobic who once went 2 years with severe toothache before cracking and going to the dentist when I couldn't take the pain anymore is to KEEP going. Believe me - my teeth are very likely to be in much worse states than yours - so unfortunately I'm caught in the loop of every time I go to see them, they find more wrong to fix, which makes me more worried about going... I've found the second I start putting off checkups is when the fear starts to spiral and I put them off again and again, and end up not going until I have serious toothache once more. All down to an evil evil nasty childhood dentist with a real fondness for pulling teeth without telling me he was going to do it, and then not being allowed to spit out any blood after an extraction and having to walk back to the car with a gobfull of blood I was forced to swallow back down basically.

Once you find a decent dentist - stick with them like glue - helps if you can verbalise exactly which parts it is that you find the hardest to deal with (for me with fillings it's when they put that band thing around the side of your tooth and put it really tight that sets me right off - she tries to work around it and avoid it wherever possible because of that, and it's when they try to hide the anasthetic needle but you can see the mahoosive hooferdoofer thing out of the corner of your eye - I'm better if I see the fact the needle's actually piddly small - so she doesn't try the sneaky ambush thing on me anymore for example) - she also does things like do the descaling part when my gob's already numb from anasthetic for a filling to reduce the fact I find that exceedingly uncomfortable... I still need a tooth extracting - but she's not pushing me, she's temporarily filled it as best as she can to give me a bit longer to get my head around needing the extraction and she's very accepting of the fact that I really do need a light touch in terms of the amount of treatment I can deal with, rather than everything she might recommend a normal patient gets done.

Doesn't mean I don't still try to run out of the waiting room on occasion, doesn't mean I don't sit and sob on the chair and stammer (I do that when stressed) - I take my husband into the consultation with me as well for support.

The other thing I do is make sure I don't arrive early - the longer I'm in the waiting room sitting stewing about it, the more anxious I get - so I wait until almost bang on appointment time before going in.

I think half the problem is that dentists and their staff hear so many people claim they've got a phobia that they're slightly sceptical about it until they actually see that you're a real case and not someone who just doesn't like the dentist - the reception girls all know me now, and know I'm genuine and are very sympathetic about it all.