• Dental Phobia Support

    Welcome! This is an online support group for anyone who is has a severe fear of the dentist or dental treatment. Please note that this is NOT a general dental problems or health anxiety forum! You can find a list of them here.

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A Sheffield Journal

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shef96

Junior member
Joined
Jan 5, 2018
Messages
16
I basically wanted somewhere anonymous to write feelings on my journey to better dental hygiene, defeating dental anxiety and keeping at bay dental phobia..

Background:
I had never been to the dentist before January 2018. In late Dec 2017, I felt something crack behind my front bottom teeth which I could pull out and immediately thought that the tooth had cracked at the gumline, which eventually bought me to this site. I also realized I had several other issues. In January, I was "assessed" by a dentist for the first time and they removed the terrible tartar buildup on my teeth. I started to learn to floss right away, and in March I finally invested in a sonic toothbrush. My first real checkup was in April, and they said that my BPE grades had got better but I was still missing areas during brushing. In the week before, I felt like I was developing TMJ and through a OTC mouthguard I've realized I've been grinding my teeth at night. This is due to changing my breathing technique from mouth to nose during sleep, directly after my January cleaning. Since May, I have been excessively worrying about tooth wear, gum recession and rate of tartar buildup on my teeth. In June, I finished my Masters degree which opened up even more time to worry about seeing the dentist. My next checkup is scheduled for July but I'm so anxious that the dentist will tell me off about tartar buildup and BPE grades may have got worse that I want to reschedule it to an earlier date. I also currently deal with about three years worth of regret for "forgetting" about the dentist and not doing some Googling on tartar a long time ago. However, I have had some very unpleasant experiences at university. And I'm 99% certain I have front teeth extractions coming due to some gum disease and overaggressive brushing in the next 1-3 years, so I am currently emotionally dealing with that too.
 
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