Bad experience?

[rubyshoes]

Originally Posted by brit

ooh not heard that one before...holding your nose or yelling is more usual (as far as bad practices go from the past)...you poor thing...that was totally abusive

I got goosebumps when I read this I'd forgotten the nose holding! Why were dentists of that era so awful they've left a generation of soo many terrified adults that it wasn't just unlucky to get the rare one who didn't like children!

ruby

[brit]

Originally Posted by rubyshoes

I got goosebumps when I read this I'd forgotten the nose holding! Why were dentists of that era so awful they've left a generation of soo many terrified adults that it wasn't just unlucky to get the rare one who didn't like children!

ruby

'Hand over mouth' was an accepted technique..it still is in use by some (not all) pediatric dentists in USA along with 'Voice Control'.
No one has ever used them on me though (born 1960s)...so they are not the only cause of dental anxiety..I suppose the fact is for older people the treatment modalities were not as predictably comfortable and the dental surgery environment was a very scary one..the 'handpiece dock' used to be the size of a skyscraper especially to a small child and everyone wore white....they weren't all nasty people either..my first childhood dentist was not mean to me at all...but I didn't like being gassed for stuff...who would? Given that treatment was less comfortable then with just local...the GA option was the kinder thing to do but it didn't excatly make you want to return...in case you needed same again. The modern treatment room of today is light years away from what I first saw in mid 1960s UK.

[rubyshoes]

Children should be seen and not heard and do as they're told attitude I suppose rather than being nasty I'm a 50's child and when I think back now teachers could be pretty harsh too. I do remember the smell of gas in the surgery though yuck and even as a teenager when I tried to go to the dentist they were never nice just seemed to take my fear as a personal insult.

ruby

[Zophiii]

I had a bad experience when I was 12, the dentist complained at me because it was my own fault a hockey ball chipped one of my front teeth and knocked out a filling! (Sadly, my normal dentist wasn't in that day, who's usally kind.) There was also another bad experience when i was 5, i had a cold and the dentist wouldn't let me cough so i choked!

[RedHairedEm]

The roots (sorry!) of my fear were, I think, down to a number of things:

- I went in for an extraction at around age 6. This was in the 1970s, very old-school dentist, don't recall having anything actually explained to me beforehand (I think I learned afterwards that I'd had an adult tooth coming through and needed the baby tooth pulled to make room for it), first I knew was this guy coming towards me with a big needle...I had to be forcibly restrained, kicked his assistant, then had the gas mask put onto my face.

(That made me lairy of dentists for a very long time. I remember at school, not long afterwards, having a lesson about 'people and their jobs' and answering questions: 'A nurse is a lady (OK, not very PC, it was the 70s!) who looks after people when they are sick in hospital' kind of thing. And when it came to dentists: 'A dentist is a man who pulls out people's teeth', I wrote. The teacher tried hard to put across to me that dentists help people look after their teeth; that wasn't quite the impression I had!)

- A bunch of fairly insensitive dentists through my teens and into adulthood. I had one dentist when I was at school who was giving me a filling, and I flinched at the noise of the drill, and he snapped 'Do that again and this drill will go through your cheek!' Not reassuring. I'm especially prone to clamming up and/or crying if faced with dentists who speak abruptly or give me lectures; it's a similar style of communication to what I used to get from my parents at home. They thought it helped make children 'good' if they were scared of you. I doubt if many of the parents of their generation realized how much chronic anxiety their 'good' children ended up with in later life. I suffer from a lot of free-floating anxiety, and a dentist's appointment just gives it something nice to glom onto.

- Also to do with parents: My mother (whom I've only recently started to admit, behaved in a way that would today be described as emotionally abusive) had an obsession with my appearance. About the time I became eligible to pay for my own dental treatment (not coincidental, I'm sure), she developed a thing about my teeth. My canines, upper and lower, have always protruded a tiny bit because of overcrowding. The odd dentist has mentioned this but not been overly concerned as it never affected speaking or eating, but my mother thought it was the most obvious thing about me. If other people didn't notice it (and they usually didn't) she had no qualms about pulling up my top lip and pointing it out to them. Naturally, that made me pretty scared of showing my teeth to anyone, least of all a professional, in case they thought they were equally terrible.

- Another thing is that she lost all her teeth at a fairly early age, and she also had a habit of coming into my room last thing at night, after she'd taken her dentures out, and haranguing me about anything she didn't like that I'd done during the day (and usually, already had a ticking off for). I still cringe at remembering how her gummy voice sounded. The idea of losing my teeth (and possibly ending up sounding like that) freaks me out enough that I've tended to have the feeling I'd rather not go to a dentist than hear the bad news.

- A minor thing: I don't especially get freaked out at the sound of the drill, but when I've had fillings, the thing they used to pack the amalgam in sounds horrible. Goes right through my head.

I think that covers most things. I'm fine with medical situations as I work in a lab, and I don't get freaked out by needles - not these days anyway - I've had blood taken tons of times and been fine with it, and while those roof-of-the-mouth jabs do hurt, they're over quickly enough and it's a blessed relief when the anesthetic kicks in. For me, really, it's much less about the actual treatment than about the psychological side of things.

[Chancery]

My dental fears started somewhere under the age of seven. I think around 5 or 6. My first dentist was an incredibly bad-tempered man who thought children were the work of Satan. I only remember one experience with him which was an extraction. I have had to piece this together over the years and from information from my mother. I was given gas – a vile, nasty smelling stuff that haunted my nightmares right into my twenties – that made me feel as if I was suffocating, with a huge black stinking mask that covered my entire face. I think I struggled in the chair, and cried, and he strapped me in – one across the chest and one across the legs. He certainly shouted and snarled a lot, and touched inappropriately and threateningly, manhandling me. Before he put the mask on he forced a huge square block of black rubber into my mouth. I couldn’t breathe (I have a small mouth anyway) nor could I lift my hands to do anything.

In due course I passed out, but unfortunately he had given me too much gas and couldn’t wake me afterwards. I did revive eventually, but he was furious with me, as if it was my fault he'd nearly killed me, and I was traumatised and completely disorientated. I was soaking wet because they had been throwing cold water over me to wake me up, and there was blood everywhere. Nightmarish doesn't quite describe it.

Unfortunately my mother didn’t do 'supportive' and she could not respond to my distress other than to try and shut me up. She made me go back to Dr G several times, although – I am told, I have no personal memories to speak of under the age of 10 – I threw major crying jags and only gave up when she couldn’t take the embarrassment of me crying. I was not a rebellious child and reacted to this treatment with a lot of profound and mystified crying. I was more afraid of angering my mother with the crying than the dentist almost, but could not stop the tears.

After that our family moved to Mr S, who was a genial and pleasant man, but who ran his practice like an army hairdressers. We lived in a rapidly expanding new town and he was the dentist. Subsequently there was always a full waiting room, and I mean full. It was not uncommon to wait an hour or more to be seen, and this was with an appointment. He used to give you an injection and then wander off to do another patient. He ran three surgeries in the one old building, just moving from one to the other, doing bits of patient. This meant, in practice, that you often either didn’t have enough novocaine if he was too soon, or that it had worn off by the time he got back to you. You also had the delicious treat of being left alone with the equipment for company (huge drill heads with bits that looked, and felt, like they could do masonry) and listening to the drill vibrating through the floor, wondering when he'd descend on you. Because the novocaine was seldom right it invariably hurt. His response to this was to drill on through, telling you just to hold on, he'd only be another minute. It was frequently close to agonising. So, between the long terrorising wait, the abandonment, the aural torture of listening to others, the not enough novocaine, the "Just hold on, nearly done", every appointment was like a mini Apocalypse Now.

My mother simply scoffed at my fears and told me to pull myself together. It was anticipating all this pain and distress, and always being unaccompanied (after about the age of ten), that led me to become truly phobic. My family would never have considered going private – it was NHS and it was free, be grateful. This adoration for free dental treatment led to me losing four molars on the grounds of "overcrowding" (I always had beautiful regular teeth but the dentist felt that it would lead to decay so I had them removed. I was very young when this was done – under 10 – but they seem to have been adult teeth because I never got more), and yet another molar because Mr S couldn’t be bothered filling a cavity. I got fillings at every single dental visit, every six months, and often extra ones at truly awful 'school dentists' which my mother insisted again I make use of because it was free. Being Scottish, my family put sugar on everything and ate it at every meal, but I feel the level of decay was more to do with the very soft water and lack of modern-day fluoridation, since I see kids eating like this today and they've never had a filling. Needless to say, I no longer eat like this and after I lost the molar-that-should-have-been-filled at age 13, I swore to never let anyone take another tooth out my head – I've managed it so far.

Lastly, I have a history of sexual abuse so the lying down, people in my space, stuff in mouth vulnerability of dentistry adds a whole new dimension of fun. Oddly, or not so oddly, I usually get abuse flashbacks when I visit the dentist, which makes the experience all the more disturbing and gruelling. This is the one aspect of treating the phobia that I find really, really hard, and one which I have not yet been able to address.

My 'dental abuse' was so excessive and went on for so many years that the cognitive therapy approach has some problems for me because my fears really aren’t that irrational in view of my experience. But I persevere with it and hope for the best.

[drummerswife]

Hi Chancery,
As I read your story, my heart goes out to you because I identify with your story in many ways. We have a lot in common. What happened to you was horrible. No human being should ever be treated that way. I want you to know that, in this past year, I have learned it doesnt have to be that way.
Should you ever want to chat privately, feel free to PM me.

[Chancery]

Thank you Drummerswife, I appreciate you taking time out to commiserate. I've just posted a thread on the support forum asking if anyone has ever managed to get any useful help for abuse issues on the NHS. I haven't, but I appreciate that it's partly because I always back off when I hit the first bit of resistance. I expect people to reject cries for help and find that rejection more intimidating and distressing than dealing on my own, but I've come to realise, at 53 and with a dental phobia that seems to be getting worse rather than better, that I need professional help.

I have actually made a doctor's appointment for next week - first time ever - but am very apprehensive about the inevitable breaking down (I can't even write this without ridiculous absurd tears) and chickening out and asking for help with my hot flushes instead! They aren't helping one little bit either, waking me up in the night, shooting me full of adrenaline when I'm already anxious and depressed.

See? This is what I fear, turning everything into a moanfest. I never know whether talking like this is a good thing or not, it's just that the distress becomes unmanageable...