Hi, if you read my posts here I was close to breaking down about the condition of my teeth and I considered seriously doing something to myself I was that bad. I knew I had a lot of issues, I actually tried to look thoroughly at my mouth and outside of the bits I knew were bad and I tried to hide, what I saw I couldn't believe. I had way more work to be done than I even anticipated. I spent days pacing my house because I couldn't think of anything else or a way out.
But I thought to myself that whatever issues I had, they weren't going to improve if I didn't go and face what I thought would be judgement and embarrassment. The fear of what could happen to me, so infections, teeth breaking completely at the gum, front teeth breaking in the middle of a work shift etc, became a way larger fear than the dentist itself was.
Yes I was anxious as hell and couldn't even think straight in the waiting room. But I just kept the above thought I had in mind, that it was the lesser of two evils. I found speaking with the dentist first briefly a big relief. I openly said that I'm anxious, I know I have a lot of work to be done and I gave a bit of history explaining how I got into this mess, and I'm worried about the condition of my teeth, but I'm prepared now to get it sorted and I hope they can help me. That helped a lot and gave me just enough to let them do an initial check. Once that initial investigation was over and they just acted completely normal with me the anxiety just dropped. My secret was out the bag, they'd seen what I tried so hard to hide and at that point the anxiety was almost gone. They didn't judge, they didn't care about the condition of my teeth (at least not in the negative way I expected them to), and I almost can't wait to get started now (June 18th, a whole month to wait).
So just get it done. You will be fine and the relief you will feel afterwards will be big. I came away with a lot to be done, 12 fillings and one extraction, but despite that I practically skipped out that door knowing I was going to get everything sorted.
I hate how some dentists mess up after they get the gift of trust from someone with dental fear. So damaging.. and what a stupid comment, that makes me really angry for you.. no surprise you are worried about being judged again. So this is a new practice, right? Do they know about this terrible experience before?
