• 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.

    Register now to access all the features of the forum.

Agoraphobic wife and dentist

  • Thread starter Thread starter CliffordKnows
  • Start date Start date
Fellow agoraphobic here. Mind asking your wife what helped her go outside of the pain?

waiting for my post to be approved, but until then posting in the comments where the shoe fits my situation.

She's actually been out more during the Covid crisis than the previous 20 years.
Not in to towns, shops or anything, but managing to go for walks in the drive and also up our lane (200 yards or so) and also for drives around our village.

The trouble her tooth was giving her meant she had little choice and the pain eventually outbalanced the agoraphobia.

She was very selective about a dentist, an out of town business park with lots of parking and it's own private car park.

I made the appointments and she didn't know anything about them until half hour before we got in the car to go, her doctor gave her some Valium and I said, "you better take one of these" half hour before leaving, which was my way of saying we are going for your appointment.

It's the knowing about things, the build up to things, the appointments which always make her worse, even me going out, I can never tell her I am going anywhere, i have to literally tell her as I'm leaving the house.

The actual dentistry treatment was absolutely fine, no problems at all, no panicking or anything.

It helped with the fact we got there, just had to wait in car 2 minutes and they came and got us and straight in to the treatment room

She wondered after why she made so much fuss, (but that's always the case, as you probably know).

Good luck with your treatment, you will be fine :)
 
Thanks so much. I’m almost similar to her in the fact that it’s the build up anxiety that’s the worst for me. It gets to the point where two days prior, I start losing sleep over it. I literally stayed up 45 hours the last time I’d made an appointment. In order to go to sleep, I had to tell myself I’d cancel the appointment in the morning and I did. That was THE only way I found sleep.

As far as agoraphobia goes, I can get out and go places. I just can’t do it alone. And I can’t go to medical places like the dentist or doctor. Another big thing for me is medications. I’ve had so many adverse reactions to medications that I haven’t taken anything in the past 11 years. Not even over the counter stuff like Tylenol. That’s another hurdle for me.

Glad to hear she got the work done and is doing well. But as one agoraphobic and panic attack wife to you? Thank you for doing what you do. I would likely not be here if it weren’t for my husband. You are appreciated.
 
Well done Clifford to both you and your wife. Hope she is now feeling much better after having the tooth out x
 
Back
Top