• Dental Phobia Support

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Under Thirty Female -

annajayne

annajayne

Member
Joined
Sep 13, 2008
Messages
97
Location
Texas
Some things are worse than death

Thanks in advance for anyone who makes it through this post. I'm not sure where I'm going but I know where I came from and I guess that is what is important in this post. I am here because I am now just under thirty and now need to consider dentures. I have no molars, I cannot eat healthy food and I'm am constantly in pain or have some kind of a dental infection of some sort. While I'm on the search for a decent prosthedontist or something similiar in the DFW area- I am reliving my dental hell so that I can get business taken care of.

Lesseeee

I was born with a series of birth defects which created some health problems in my younger years. I had chronic kidney infections which meant a lot of medications growing up. I do not have memories of my mother making sure I brushed my teeth every night but I do remember the concept being at least a semi-casual teaching in my pre 10-year-old years. I think the teeth became a back seat issue because of my other chronic health issues growing up.

I remember going to the dentist for check ups when I was a little girl - I remember losing my first baby tooth- but I believe I developed dental phobia when my permanant teeth came in. A few weeks after one of my permanant molars came in, I remember it itching and being painful around the gum area. I remember my room and my mom telling me we were going to visit a dentist after looking at my mouth herself. She later made an appointment with a dentist I had never met before. See, we had not lived in Oklahoma very long in 1988.

I believe that this particular incident effected my view of adults in general for the rest of my life. I had no idea at the time, but this one dental visit would effect the rest of my life in unimaginable ways. The dentist himself has probably long forgotten me. I was probably just a pain in his ass that day.

When I was 8 years old my parents took me to a dentist in Oklahoma as one of my first molars needed a root canal. The dentist didn't allow the parents in the little room he did the work in and I remember he had a very harsh personality.

I don't remember arriving at the actual dentist office. I remember my parents being told that they had to be in the waiting room. I remember being scared.
I did not realize what was going on at the time and I had no parents to give direction or comfort. My parents went into the waiting room not realizing that the dentist was not child friendly.

I remember this room as if it were yesterday. I remember the smells along with the use of words he applied to a child he had no tolerance for. I remember feeling very insecure. I already had a white coat syndrome as it was due to the multiple medical procedures I had needed in my youth. In spite of that, I never once experienced an unloving pair of hands before this very appointment though in the medical world.

I remember the dentist shoving a rubber square in my mouth to keep it open. It was in the right side. His assistant was just as irritated as he was but I don't remember her saying much.

I remember crying - I really didn't want to be there. There was no "mask" that made me go to sleep. The dentist put a shot in my mouth - it was the first one I had ever had. I remember the shot hurt but he said it would hurt worse if I moved so I just cried and didn't move. After he took the needle out I remember the exact words "The shot doesn't hurt, you don't have any nerves there quit being a fraidy cat"

I remember he went away for a while - I sat there with the rubber square between my molars on the right side. I felt the saliva in my mouth gagging me but I lacked the practice in swollowing my own saliva and nasty novacaine taste with rubber holding my mouth open so wide so I sat there quietly panicking and feeling like I was slowly drowning.

I remember the dentist coming back later. I was still crying a bit. The dentist and his assistant began their work. The dentist was forceful with my face. I remember this and his comments about me not doing what I told him to. I don't really remember what it was I wasn't doing, I only remember not knowing what the hell was going on.

When the drill started, I remember that being scary at first but there was no pain. Not long afterwords, there was pain and it was horrible. The dentist did not stop. He kept repeating the words over and over that the shot blocked all feeling. Little did he know (or care) at the time that he did not place the novacaine shot in the right place. I have given birth since then and that pain was nothing compared to the pain I felt at the age of 8 having root canal done on a tooth with no anasthesia.

The last of the procedure I remember was the dentist stopped drilling because I was screaming and crying. I wanted my mother - I remember the distinct words "If you don't shut - up you'll never see your mother again"

I really don't remember much after that. I remember more of the pain and I remember seeing stars (floaters) in the ceiling. I remember blacking out at some point because I got dizzy real quick. It was the floaters that makes me think I got dizzy but its entirely possible i just don't remember the rest.

I remember leaving the dentist room when it was done. The dentists assistant gave me this toy for "being so good" it looked like straw that you can stick both fingers in. If you pull your fingers apart they would get stuck. It was blue and red.

My cheek was huge and swollen. Apparently the dentist realized later that he had placed the shot in the wrong place. My cheek looked like someone had shoved a baseball into it. I remember my mother talking to all of my grandparents that shot issue. As a child, I didn't know at the time that the pain was related in any way. I didn't realize that until much later in life.

Nonetheless. The thought of returning to the dentist ever since has brought on many boughts of anxiety and depression so fierce that the thought of suicide has come up a number of times over the years in response to time periods where I realized that I would need to see a dentist or I would succumb to infection, simply not eat, or endure months of horrible pain. I avoided the whole situation by just never saying anything. I went through a brief period of dental phobia "recovery" when I was 16 when my mother started dental treatment with a dental office in Carrollton, Tx.

The first two dentists there that started my treatment were fine (extensive - all of my teeth needed treatment of some sort) the father of one of the younger dentists however, who did one of my treatments was very degrating, humiliating and had no care for dignity whatsoever. Here I am, a 16 year old girl - he doesn't know me from Jane next door and he is lecturing me, tearing me down and blaming my bad teeth on me - telling me that I am looking at having false teeth and if I had bothered to brush my teeth and get to the dentist blah blah blah. Maybe he was right. I brushed my teeth - twice a day. I was too terrified to go to the dentist so I did what I could to prevent ever going that is true. Anyone who had lived through my ordeal probably would as well. My mother had financial problems so I never went much anyway. While I started working when I was 14 I did not have the life knowledge to "suck it up and go to the dentist anyway" I just knew that going meant extreme suffering. I could not tell it apart from punishment in any way shape, or form unlike most people who consider dentistry a way to take care of yourself and love yourself. More goes here but I alread feel like this is long enough.

My last dentist who is responsible for me even being here retired a few years ago. His name is Dr. Michael Brown and he worked in the Presbyterian professional offices. He was the nicest dentist I ever had. He worked by himself with a foriegn assistant, both of whom bugged the crap out of me to make sure I came back when I needed to but whom did not berrate me when I got upset about it. Truth be told, I was in an emergency situation when I got there. Had it not been for Dr. Brown and his wit (moreso than his dental skills) I would have lost all of my teeth at 21. I found him because I had visit a Castle Dental place out of necessity - I went through the trouble of writing a letter to the dentist ahead of time to tell him my fears and give him an opportunity to cancel my appointment if he couldn't do the basic things I asked to make my visit less fearful. He either didn't read my letter or cared less. The result I don't want to go into here right now but I cannot tell you that I would be alive today if it were not for Dr. Brown.

Ok so thats one part. Its time for me to find a dental prosthedontist. I have gotten to the point where I need to get replacement teeth (a full set) and that is what brought me here. I need to break through all of the barriers that keep me from getting this done. Believe it or not, pain isn't the issue either. I have built up quite a tolerance to pain over the years. I want to keep my dignity and truly don't know how well prosthetic teeth will work for me because my face is so messed up inside.

I have a three year old now so I can't just not take care of this. I just lost a filling in the one of two teeth I can chew with right now and I know for a fact the infection in it will be getting bad pretty soon. once the tooth comes out, I won't have any that bite together any more so I won't just be seeing a dentist or whatever for an extraction but for a full recovery. I can't afford anymore root canals, crowns or fillings. I have already sent a few kids to college off of my dental work. I want to eat raw vegetables. I want to smile and feel good about it. I don't want to be in pain anymore and I am done with infections constantly making me tired. Yesterday I woke up with a high fever and a fat cheek. It bothered me that the first thing I thought of was how quickly this infection could kill me so that I could just move on and not have to deal with any of it anymore.
 
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Hi Annajayne
:welcome:
Thanks for sharing all that..I hope you found it carthartic to write it down....I do understand as I had a similar but not as bad experience with a :devilish: dentist at age 10 - my parents weren't banned and would not have been; but I simply went alone; and he took advantage of this...I was an obedient unassertive child who had only experienced kindness from adults (including dentists and doctors - we had moved house) .....I just put up with it all....and he knew he was hurting me because I vividly remember him wiping my tears away and saying 'that was a deep one' (1 of 4) and then buying me off with a pack of chewing gum at the end lol!
I told my Mum I didn't like him but not why- she said you can change when you've finished this course of treatment so I had 2 torture sessions in all. The thing is without LA, inserting the amalgam was painful in some of the places and he definitely took pleasure in pushing the stuff in on a clicky thing over and over - the only thing I can say in his defence is that the fillings he did lasted years..I still have most of them. He was a South African trained dentist working in UK NHS...so was not behaving in accordance with the norm at all even for that time (1970s).

I am so glad you found your good guy but that it was too late to save your teeth...at least this fact means you know all dentists are not like that and that you really did meet a bad apple and then subsequently an old-fashioned lectury type with zilch psychology understanding (probably also a bad apple in other ways as well).

You now have your daughter..well the best thing you can do for her is never leave her alone with a dentist..despite what many USA pediatric dentists claim is best...seriously..leastways only do it if you trust them 100%/and-or stay within earshot.

I wish you well in finding a good prosthodontist in your area - don't be afriad to shop around, visit several, look at examples of their work and choose the one you trust. Have a look here


:grouphug:Let us know how it goes - what happened to you was wrong and wasn't your fault...you have to move on for your daughter's sake and as others on here will testify having dentures is not the end of the world and can greatly improve your quality of life.
 
Hello and :welcome:I know exactly what you are feeling,all of my top teeth we're in a horriables state.They we're all broken to the gum line and the front crowns I had done as a teenager we're falling out and breaking.I also built up a really strong tollerance for pain ....but it just got so bad that I had to have them fixed.
so after 12 years I went to the dentist.
I am 30 years old and a single mom of 2 girls(ages3 and 11)The dentist said that I needed all mt top tetth extracted and immidiate dentures placed.
Yes I was so scarde...I coulden't eat or sleep or concentrrate on anything,but I with the support of this site and family I did it and it wasent at all bad like I imagined and the extractions we're painless(just a little pressure)and the recovery wasen't bad either.
I will tell you that as soon as those teeth we're pulled,it felt so good to know that those icky things we're out of my mouth:).
Now 4 months later(give or take)I haven't had one tooth ache....I can eat ice cream with my kids instead of just watching....I can smile(who would have thought:()and I am finally enjoying life and most importantly I am spending great time with my kids without being in constant pain.....about a month after the extractions and denture(only top)my oldest daughter said mom"Mom you seem so different"and I explained to her that I was finally happy and not embarassed to smile and laugh.
its amazing the relief and happiness you feel when your mouth is healthy and u can eat something without having the advil standing by>>>lol.

Find a dentist who undertands your fear and wants to make u as comfortable as possiable(there are many out there)and also remeber that the first appointment is just a Chat and maybe a looksy if you are feeling comfortable.

You can also take something special to help comfort you ...I took pictures of my girls for that extra courage and I also took a blanket...which helped me feel safe.

Just know that there is tons of support here and consider your post the first step....so you should be very proud of yourself.
This fear is horriable but it can be overcome...just give yourself time and know that you are completly in control...nothing can be done without your permission!.If you need to chat feel free to pm me.
I am so proud of you allready

remeber that you can do this and it really truly isen't as bad as our minds tell us it is.
You are in my thoghts and in my prayer.:XXLhug:
Start a journal it helps and read the journals and the sucsess stories and congradulate your self on making the first step.:jump:
 
Thank you :XXLhug: for the welcome.

I realize I have to move on for the sake of my child and my own. Conciously, I know those experiences can't happen anymore as I'm now an adult and quite capable of phyiscally defending myself and will not hesitate to either.

I did find a link for a dentist about 20 miles from me.

Though I haven't found out yet whether or not there is a prostho there. I do not want to see a dentist that does NOT enjoy making dentures. Good thing they have email too. If I called them and tried to speak nothing would come out...

:grouphug:
 
Hello and :welcome:I know exactly what you are feeling,all of my top teeth we're in a horriables state.They we're all broken to the gum line and the front crowns I had done as a teenager we're falling out and breaking.I also built up a really strong tollerance for pain ....but it just got so bad that I had to have them fixed.
That was pretty much my situation when I met Dr Brown only all of my top teeth needed crowns and I had a nasty cyst in one of them from where a root canal that a dentist did when I was sixteen went wrong (some how during the root canal, he drilled all the way over and hit the tip of the root on the adjacent front tooth, killing it and creating a dangerous infectious cycst) I remember freaking out when I saw that on the x-ray. Dr.. Brown was going to send me to an endo but I flipped out - so he did the surgery (epiodectomy) right there. He probably knew I wouldn't go see another dentist if I left his room that day. He did a great job. about 5 years later, the tooth that was killed broke for obvious reasons and he did a "backwards" crown.

H warned me that what he was doing may only last about ten years but he knew how important it was to me to keep my natural teeth as long as I could. Now all 8 o the teeth in the top of my head have crowns on them (one of them is a temporary I had done when I was 16) and I'm fairly certain that only 3 of them maybe 4 of them will last the next 5 or so years without problems. I have 3 of them which have chronic infections and two open roots that if they have gotten infected - I just don't know about it it.

The bottom are screwed. I have absolutly no molars on the bottom or the top - My molars never fit and I grinded/crushed them away as I got older. The dentist I visited when I was 16 did a whole bunch of fillings on the back quadrants of my mouth, but when he did those fillings, he did it the lazy way and I couldn't floss them after that. My teeth did not have enough space between them for me to needle thread floss through either. Essentially when he did the quadrants made 4 teeth all one big filling at the top...


How are your bottom teeth? Did you have to have a bunch of work done on those too? I will probably write a journal. I have to figure out a little how ya'll journal section works.

Someone mentioned last night that I should be seeing a psychologist. I can pay for the dental work, or I can pay for the pschologist/psychiatrist - I can't pay for both and I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to pay for the dental work as my extractions I'm sure won't be simple exctractions.

I usually take xanax when I go to the dentist. I guess they started taking blood pressure or mandating that happen the second year I was getting treatment for Dr. Brown . My BP is usually in stroke range if I go in unmedicated. I've gone from the Dentist directly to the ER twice so its best just to be drugged
 
Sounds like you are thinking really straight about all this..I would say skip the psychologist most definitely and just rely on sedation methods or simply finding another 'Good guy/gal' dentist using TLC. There's no guarantee the money with a psychologist would be well spent..could be a bottomless money pit.:grouphug:
 
There's no guarantee the money with a psychologist would be well spent..could be a bottomless money pit.:grouphug:

Yeah, Ive never really benefited much from psychologists. I benefit more from support groups and self-help books where others in the support group have had similiar problems as myself and each of us can identify with each other and help each other discover ways to get through it. The psychologists I have hired in the past I failed to foster any kind of trusting relationship with in order to make the transaction beneficial for either of us.

I guess I just have a very difficult time reconciling the fact that I was paying someone a lot of money to help me with a phobia they knew nothing but theory and textbook knowledge about (as was obvious about 20 minutes into about the 2nd or 3rd therapy session)

Maybe once I get my dental situation resolved I might go take care of my inability to build trust relationships with other adults but right now I prefer to question peoples motives. It helps keep me from being exploited.
 
Yes, they could be a good source for a decent referral elsewhere for you...I certainly don't expect them to be mean to you...that would be ironic......don't worry we do the 'amateur psychology' and 'peer support' on here for free!
I would think you'd still have options...even if some kind of facial surgery is the absolute optimum way forward..it doesn't mean you can't choose the next approach down from that. have you emailed yet?

Do look at DrOgle...it's a few dollars well spent to get access to all the reviews people have done on various Dallas dentists/prosthodontists.....reading between the lines can be very revealing.
 
Yes, they could be a good source for a decent referral elsewhere for you...I certainly don't expect them to be mean to you...that would be ironic......don't worry we do the 'amateur psychology' and 'peer support' on here for free!
I would think you'd still have options...even if some kind of facial surgery is the absolute optimum way forward..it doesn't mean you can't choose the next approach down from that. have you emailed yet?

Do look at DrOgle...it's a few dollars well spent to get access to all the reviews people have done on various Dallas dentists/prosthodontists.....reading between the lines can be very revealing.


Thanks for reminding me, no I haven't emailed yet. It is much easier talking to you than it is to them. They're the enemy remember? :o Doh!!

I'll look at DrOgle. I have no idea what you're talking about yet but haven't googled it yet. Its Sunday and I'm sitting in the river of DeNile today as no one is open on Sunday anyway.

I will pay money for good dental reviews. I'm not poor, I'm just broken.

Thank you for the reference.
 
Some are the enemy for sure ;) - others are more like 'strange friends' who have a weird interest in your oral health.
 
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Some are the enemy for sure ;) - others are more like 'strange friends' who have a weird interest in your oral health.


Yeah, Yeah - I know, they're not all evil. Like many medical professionals, I'm sure most of them originally go there to help people or with an interest in the particular biological functions in which they specialize. If I ever say things that seem to indicate the contrary, I hope that most people will recognize that is my irrational fear talking and I sincerely apologize for offending anyone who may fall into that category of persons who have strange interests in the oral health of others. I am working towards an attitude adjustment in this area..
 
Yeah, Yeah - I know, they're not all evil. Like many medical professionals, I'm sure most of them originally go there to help people or with an interest in the particular biological functions in which they specialize. If I ever say things that seem to indicate the contrary, I hope that most people will recognize that is my irrational fear talking and I sincerely apologize for offending anyone who may fall into that category of persons who have strange interests in the oral health of others. I am working towards an attitude adjustment in this area..

The dentists hang out in the 'Other Place'..you can say what the heck you like about :devilish:dentists in this one...part of the service is encouraging people to look at the situation differently....dental fear based on unnecessarily bad experiences is not necessarily irrational..it is just the extent of avoidance that it can cause which I think is irrational....we get posters who think procedures are supposed to hurt even with anaesthetic and when we tell them otherwise, it's quite a revelation to them...all the media jokes about dentistry being painful haven't informed them at all, but rather misled them and fed their fear unnecessarily.
It doesn't apply in your case I know, as you did find a decent one at one point.
I'm guessing this is a hurdle because it's a final step you are looking to take and there are risks involved but these can be minimised and you are just in the 'informing myself of my options' stage really.
You say 'pain' is not your issue despite what happened originally but amateur psychologist here....I think it maybe still is to an extent, but pain you naturally allow to happen to yourself by not going to the dentist is easier to bear than the thought of risking being out of control and in the power of another. You are actually more in control in the situation with a dentist since you can tell them to stop, and you can find one with painless techniques, whereas you can't tell your tooth to stop bugging you...well you can but unless you are a hypnotist it probably won't work.
You get back there 'on your terms' I suppose be that sedation or just TLC ....find the right prosthodontist for you :cloud9: and it all gets much much easier. :grouphug:
 
I'm guessing this is a hurdle because it's a final step you are looking to take and there are risks involved but these can be minimised and you are just in the 'informing myself of my options' stage really.
You say 'pain' is not your issue despite what happened originally but amateur psychologist here....I think it maybe still is to an extent, but pain you naturally allow to happen to yourself by not going to the dentist is easier to bear than the thought of risking being out of control and in the power of another. You are actually more in control in the situation with a dentist since you can tell them to stop, and you can find one with painless techniques, whereas you can't tell your tooth to stop bugging you...well you can but unless you are a hypnotist it probably won't work.
You get back there 'on your terms' I suppose be that sedation or just TLC ....find the right prosthodontist for you :cloud9: and it all gets much much easier. :grouphug:

Good points, all of them. You hit that control issue hammer-nail-head. In all seriousness though, I have had at least 9 root canals since (with no sedation) but with successful novacaine injections (thankfully) I can't tell you how many fillings (along with having the same fillings redone for one reason or another) 4 complicated wisdom teeth extractions (that one was with general anasthesia as I didn't do anything about them for six months and created a nightmare) over half of my 32 teeth extracted and the pain was the last thing on my mind each and every time I walked into the dentist office from the first horrid experience to the last one. I've had a couple of hospital style infections etc ad nauseum. I dunno how much of my stomache is left from advil ingestion though :) lets put it like that :)

It is a control issue almost entirely.
 
It is a control issue almost entirely.

For me, I think part of it is an embarrassment issue. In the office I used to go to, the doctors chairs were lined up in a large room with dividers between them, so when a patient was being walked back to their chair, you see the stranger walk by as you are getting your work done. That was always embarrassing to me.

:o
 
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