Emotional wreck, despite mass valium... help!

[YazL]

I've only really had dental issues since last year, when I was 18.
Now I'm a complete mess.
I've been sent home from appointments because I become hysterical and have severe panic attacks. I've passed out a few times as well.
This morning when I went I took double my recommended dose of valium (took 10mg instead of 5mg), and still couldn't cope.
My dentist is nice enough, and she wants to put me to sleep for the two fillings I have to have done, but my dad doesn't want to pay for it and I can't afford it. Plus he's going overseas next week. I don't mind him taking me as he doesn't say anything. He doesn't do emotion.
But my mum is really judgemental and has said wonderfully upsetting things to me over the years, varying from telling me the multiple sexual assaults/rapes I suffered as a child and teen were all my fault, to calling me stupid and pathetic regularly.
I don't know what to do. I consider suicide every time it comes to dental appointments. It feels like torture to me. It's not even the pain so much, as it's not usually too strong.
I'm a bloody vegan who rarely touches fizzy drinks and alcohol, and brush my teeth obsessively and research the pH of foods, so I don't even understand why I always need so much work.
Not that check ups themselves don't leave me a quivering mess anyway.
Anyone have any ideas how to fix this? Or know if I can get anything (much) stronger than valium without footing a massive bill?
I'm in Australia and so dentistry is expensive. Not covered by health system.

 

[haggis for the soul]

Do you have a friend who could go to your appointment with you? It might help having someone caring and nonjudgemental around you.

 

[YazL]

Hi
thanks for your reply
I forgot to "subscribe" to the feed so i didn't see it til now...
problem for me is, i don't really have any close friends who i'm comfortable seeing me like that, and who i trust not to judge me
lots of friends, they just don't know me that way

 

[drummerswife]

Hi Yaz,
I have been where you are dear lady. Your posts said you took 10mg of Valium and still could not cope. I understand your fear.
Everyone experiences the effects of medication differently depending in individual body chemistry so I can only speal from my own experiemce and inmy experience my own terror of the dentist was so intense that 19 mg of Valium did very little for me. And yet my dentust knew the only way to get beyond my terror was to sedate me. This meant finding the right dosage of meds that would be effective. This tunred out to be 10mg of Valium before the appointment and 20-30 mg one hour before. I was told this is the maxiium dose that can safely be given to someone. It made me very relaxed and sleepy and took aawy my fear along with much of my memory of those early visits. I remember bits and pieces but thats it.
My husband would take me because I was too woozy to go alone and he would walk me into the room, sit me in the chair, turn on my IPOD and then go to the waiting room. When I was done, he walked me to the car and took me home and put me to bed so I could sleep off the meds.
As trust grew between me and the dentist, we began reducing the level of sedation and now I go alone with no meds at all. But its taken an entire year to get there.