T
TheWolfess
Member
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2021
- Messages
- 27
- Location
- Poland
Hi everyone,
I just stumbled across the forum yesterday and today I found the courage to post. I hope my story will also help someone else fight with their anxiety.
But first a little backstory.
I always had weak teeth - it's genetic in my mother's family - and also, rarely followed proper dental hygiene because of some mental issues I had as a teenager. But I did take care of my teeth enough for them to be mostly okay. By the time I was 14 I had to have root canal in my lower back molar. And this is the start of my phobia. The dentist that did this drilled into my tooth, put some medication in to kill it, and told me to go home and go back in a week or so. I was still on my way home, when the pain hit (despite still feeling numbness in my cheek). It was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life before or after (and I've had a broken leg as well as given birth). It was excruciating, drilling into my head, continuous torture. No amount of pain killers helped (and my parents wouldn't let me take a lot) and I could just sit on my bed with and ice-pack pressed on my cheek and sob, and cry. The pain lasted for three days, and honestly at the end I was so exhausted I was coming in and out of consciousness. Nevertheless my parents said it's normal, the tooth is dying and it has to hurt and did nothing, just let me stay home for the time. It gave me such mental scarring that I didn't go back to this dentist again. Fortunately a month or two later my aunt (my fathers cousin) started her dentist practice. She finished the root canal. This time it didn't hurt so much but was still painfull, as was the procedure itself because apparently I am resistant to normal numbing.
Since then I started missing my dentist appointments, also the fact that we moved to a different state than my aunt lives and has her practice didn't help.
Fast forward two years, and one of my teeth got so bad that I had to have it extracted. Again painful, but honestly not as bad as the root canal. Since then I went to the dentist very rarely, and as I went to college my dental care routine became nonexistent. Right after college I got pregnant, and then I did some minor work on some of the teeth but nothing major. And then, it took two more years of caring for a baby to finally make me realize that if I won't do something about my teeth - they could get so infected I could even die and I now had a daughter to look after and I didn't want to dissapear from her life over something as 'stupid' as teeth. So, in 2018 I went and got two of my teeth removed and even though the pain was there, the judgment from the oral surgeon was way worse. I went to the appointment with my mother who had to have one of her front teeth removed. And pulling mine, he commented on how I was an awful person to let my teeth get so bad so early in my life. That my mother was in her fifties and I had almost as bad teeth as her despite being half that age. And so on and so on. Needles to say, I haven't been back there ever again.
Fast forward to now. I finally gathered the courage to again start doing something about my teeth and this time see it through. I found one of the best dentists in the country when it comes to dentophobia and just had the first appointment last Friday. He was nice and understanding, I didn't even have to open my mouth - we talked about my teeth looking at the scan he took of my mouth on the computer. He never said anything dismissive, commented on how he worked with many dentophobiacs and he knows the fear is normal.
So, I'm booked for next Friday for cleaning and taking care of minor cavities. And he suggested having my teeth pulled under GA. I have to have six of them pulled (all wisdom teeth and two molars) and he could place two implants for the molars in the same surgery which would make recovery much quicker and easier.
Late on Friday I got an e-mail with the proposed treatment plan and... It's a lot of money. I mean, yes my husband is able to take a loan this size but we'll be paying it back for 5-6 years. But... I suppose it's worth it.
I do want to start taking care of my teeth again, to take care of any problems as soon as they appear instead of waiting until it's so bad I have to have the tooth removed. So I suppose it's going to serve me for a lifetime, or at least much longer than I'll be paying off the loan.
So now I'm looking for techniques to get through next Friday appointment, as the noise of the drill is a pretty major trigger for me - my teeth start hurting as soon as I hear it.
I just stumbled across the forum yesterday and today I found the courage to post. I hope my story will also help someone else fight with their anxiety.
But first a little backstory.
I always had weak teeth - it's genetic in my mother's family - and also, rarely followed proper dental hygiene because of some mental issues I had as a teenager. But I did take care of my teeth enough for them to be mostly okay. By the time I was 14 I had to have root canal in my lower back molar. And this is the start of my phobia. The dentist that did this drilled into my tooth, put some medication in to kill it, and told me to go home and go back in a week or so. I was still on my way home, when the pain hit (despite still feeling numbness in my cheek). It was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life before or after (and I've had a broken leg as well as given birth). It was excruciating, drilling into my head, continuous torture. No amount of pain killers helped (and my parents wouldn't let me take a lot) and I could just sit on my bed with and ice-pack pressed on my cheek and sob, and cry. The pain lasted for three days, and honestly at the end I was so exhausted I was coming in and out of consciousness. Nevertheless my parents said it's normal, the tooth is dying and it has to hurt and did nothing, just let me stay home for the time. It gave me such mental scarring that I didn't go back to this dentist again. Fortunately a month or two later my aunt (my fathers cousin) started her dentist practice. She finished the root canal. This time it didn't hurt so much but was still painfull, as was the procedure itself because apparently I am resistant to normal numbing.
Since then I started missing my dentist appointments, also the fact that we moved to a different state than my aunt lives and has her practice didn't help.
Fast forward two years, and one of my teeth got so bad that I had to have it extracted. Again painful, but honestly not as bad as the root canal. Since then I went to the dentist very rarely, and as I went to college my dental care routine became nonexistent. Right after college I got pregnant, and then I did some minor work on some of the teeth but nothing major. And then, it took two more years of caring for a baby to finally make me realize that if I won't do something about my teeth - they could get so infected I could even die and I now had a daughter to look after and I didn't want to dissapear from her life over something as 'stupid' as teeth. So, in 2018 I went and got two of my teeth removed and even though the pain was there, the judgment from the oral surgeon was way worse. I went to the appointment with my mother who had to have one of her front teeth removed. And pulling mine, he commented on how I was an awful person to let my teeth get so bad so early in my life. That my mother was in her fifties and I had almost as bad teeth as her despite being half that age. And so on and so on. Needles to say, I haven't been back there ever again.
Fast forward to now. I finally gathered the courage to again start doing something about my teeth and this time see it through. I found one of the best dentists in the country when it comes to dentophobia and just had the first appointment last Friday. He was nice and understanding, I didn't even have to open my mouth - we talked about my teeth looking at the scan he took of my mouth on the computer. He never said anything dismissive, commented on how he worked with many dentophobiacs and he knows the fear is normal.
So, I'm booked for next Friday for cleaning and taking care of minor cavities. And he suggested having my teeth pulled under GA. I have to have six of them pulled (all wisdom teeth and two molars) and he could place two implants for the molars in the same surgery which would make recovery much quicker and easier.
Late on Friday I got an e-mail with the proposed treatment plan and... It's a lot of money. I mean, yes my husband is able to take a loan this size but we'll be paying it back for 5-6 years. But... I suppose it's worth it.
I do want to start taking care of my teeth again, to take care of any problems as soon as they appear instead of waiting until it's so bad I have to have the tooth removed. So I suppose it's going to serve me for a lifetime, or at least much longer than I'll be paying off the loan.
So now I'm looking for techniques to get through next Friday appointment, as the noise of the drill is a pretty major trigger for me - my teeth start hurting as soon as I hear it.
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