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Conquering my fear

S

SpongeBob

Junior member
Joined
Sep 26, 2017
Messages
4
I guess I will begin by how I got here. When I was just eight years old I had a tooth extracted and it shook my mum up so much that she never took me back. I took care of my own teeth by brushing then, flossing etc but that was it. When I was old enough to go myself the fear was inbuilt. At aged 21 my daughter died and I stopped caring for myself, depression and punishing myself I guess. I stopped brushing my teeth too. Over the next seven years I had sixteen miscarriages and buried another daughter. My self hatred was at an all time high.

I managed to bring home a baby and keep him and slowly but surely I've built myself up to a level of semi liking myself again. I want to go to university and study to become a healthcare professional, to help like me. But my teeth are hindering me. I hate to talk. Hate to smile. They're preventing me healing further.

Until recently I had been twice since I was eight (i am 32), both to the same dentist. I had an abbcess both times (same place) and the fear meant I could barely open my mouth. He promised to send me some where else, a referral to where I could be sedated. That was ten years ago and never happened. In the mean time my teeth got worse and worse.

I made a decision to go to the dentist about a month ago. I searched out a nervous patient dentist, one that offered sedation. I went to my first appointment and she was amazing. Part of my fear was afraid of judgement too. She hasn't to my face at least and said at least my teeth aren't hurting me.

The first appointment she just did X-rays and made notes of where I needed fillings etc. This helped me massively as I realised they didn't just cause pain.

A week later I went back as they were suppose to do the teeth mould for a denture but it was too late as the man had collected the things already. So she numbed me, three injection in the top and two in the bottom. Even my eye lids were numb. I hated that feeling. They did nine fillings in total. All composite. The front ones make my bottom teeth look so much better. The rest were all at the back. The cleaning I hate. It is awful. The vibration send my anxiety through the roof.

Any way, one of my filling between my two front teeth fell out the very next day. I was gutted. A week after and I went back for the cast to be made. That made me gag. They also did the filling.

I finally went back for my extraction of six front teeth today and the people who make them had messed up and they had only put canines on the denture. So a wasted day in some ways. However I saw the denture and it has relieved some of my fears. It's not a huge chunk of plastic and the two teeth did look natural.

That brings me to now. My fear is far from nothing, each time I go it's traumatic for me but I'm so proud of how far I've come. I've still got a way to go, extraction and probably a few more fillings but I really hope that soon I'm able to order in a restaurant without feeling ashamed or ask my husband to.
 
I guess I will begin by how I got here. When I was just eight years old I had a tooth extracted and it shook my mum up so much that she never took me back. I took care of my own teeth by brushing then, flossing etc but that was it. When I was old enough to go myself the fear was inbuilt. At aged 21 my daughter died and I stopped caring for myself, depression and punishing myself I guess. I stopped brushing my teeth too. Over the next seven years I had sixteen miscarriages and buried another daughter. My self hatred was at an all time high.

I managed to bring home a baby and keep him and slowly but surely I've built myself up to a level of semi liking myself again. I want to go to university and study to become a healthcare professional, to help like me. But my teeth are hindering me. I hate to talk. Hate to smile. They're preventing me healing further.

Until recently I had been twice since I was eight (i am 32), both to the same dentist. I had an abbcess both times (same place) and the fear meant I could barely open my mouth. He promised to send me some where else, a referral to where I could be sedated. That was ten years ago and never happened. In the mean time my teeth got worse and worse.

I made a decision to go to the dentist about a month ago. I searched out a nervous patient dentist, one that offered sedation. I went to my first appointment and she was amazing. Part of my fear was afraid of judgement too. She hasn't to my face at least and said at least my teeth aren't hurting me.

The first appointment she just did X-rays and made notes of where I needed fillings etc. This helped me massively as I realised they didn't just cause pain.

A week later I went back as they were suppose to do the teeth mould for a denture but it was too late as the man had collected the things already. So she numbed me, three injection in the top and two in the bottom. Even my eye lids were numb. I hated that feeling. They did nine fillings in total. All composite. The front ones make my bottom teeth look so much better. The rest were all at the back. The cleaning I hate. It is awful. The vibration send my anxiety through the roof.

Any way, one of my filling between my two front teeth fell out the very next day. I was gutted. A week after and I went back for the cast to be made. That made me gag. They also did the filling.

I finally went back for my extraction of six front teeth today and the people who make them had messed up and they had only put canines on the denture. So a wasted day in some ways. However I saw the denture and it has relieved some of my fears. It's not a huge chunk of plastic and the two teeth did look natural.

That brings me to now. My fear is far from nothing, each time I go it's traumatic for me but I'm so proud of how far I've come. I've still got a way to go, extraction and probably a few more fillings but I really hope that soon I'm able to order in a restaurant without feeling ashamed or ask my husband to.

It sounds like you're doing really well and you should be really proud of yourself! I am going through something similar to you and have had a few bumps in the road but it's great to have each other's support on here isn't it? Keep on moving forward, very soon you will have the smile you deserve! Good luck with it all!:clover:
 
Thank you Aurora. It does help to know you’re not alone.

I’m currently in the dentist waiting room. Awaiting my extractions. The noises are driving me crazy. I feel so nervous.
 
That’s it done. The front two were really hard to extract, took about ten minutes. The roof of my mouth is really sore. I’m not sure why. I forgot to ask how long I leave the denture in too.
 
It’s been two weeks now so I thought I would update. The first day I had a terrible headache so went to sleep and woke up to no longer being numb. It was fine. I drank milkshakes, ate yoghurt and ice cream that day.

The next day i managed to eat some pasta but that night I got a tummy bug and kept being sick which eventually knocked one of my clots out. I was so upset and terrified of dry socket.

Eventually I was better and I slowly began to eat again. For the first five days or so I managed one meal a day and some milkshake.

Now I’m back to eating most things but I can’t actually bite with it yet as the slightest bit of pressure and it falls out. It’s not quite healed enough to adhesive yet.

After the first day or two there was the occasional bit of pain but nothing much. Three of the four still have their clots. One of the canines, o have no clue what she did as it was like the gum was slip to the top of my mouth, the clot was huge because of this.

I can smile and talk about to strangers but I still feel self conscious. I don’t take my denture out at all other than to clean it and my teeth. I feel like in time, it’s going to make such a difference to my life.
 
“It’s OKAY to be scared. Being scared means you’re about to do something really, really brave.”
 
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