Haven't been to dentist in a long time

[Buzz_pixie]

Hello, new here.

On my search to try and get myself to a dentist I came across this forum.

I haven't been to a dentist since I was probably around 10 or so years old. I'm 29 now and I really wish my mom stuck to bringing me to the dentist..

She sorta gave up because I was a screamer/crier. The dentist tools always freaked me out. Now my teeth are messed up, mostly my upper front teeth are kind of crooked and I have a deep fear of going into a dentist and getting anything done.

Now in my late 20's I'm just full of social anxiety because of my appearance/teeth. I don't ever smile. I want to smile. I miss it? But I'll get judged.

I don't have a ton of money because I don't work currently, so I have government assisted dental insurance. And that won't do everything I Need to get a better smile.. I don't think?

My teeth are yellowish and I guess a cleaning would already just boost up my confidence, but I'm just scared of being judged by the dentist themselves... It's really weird right? Teeth are messed up, you wanna fix them because you don't want to be judged by your peers/strangers about it, but you're also scared of the dentist judging you so you just do nothing...

A lot of people take their smiles for granted, don't think much about their teeth because their parents did the job of bringing them into the dentist to begin with. I wish I at least had straight teeth... I wish my mom forced dental care into my life more harder...

Thanks for reading if you're still here...

 

[Enarete]

Hi and welcome Buzz_pixie. Being afraid of judgment and even feeling weird is not too unusual, you would be surprised how many people with dental fear feel like this. There is even a very helpful
article to this in the common fear section on this forum:

https://www.dentalfearcentral.org/fears/embarrassment/

If after reading this you still do not feel confident enough, then here is the whole issue from the perspective of a dentist:

Embarrassed

i havent been to the dentist in nearly 6 years, i am to embrassed to go, but i have a split gum on one of my top teeth i have look on the internet about it but cant find anyone who has any problem with split gums, i really worried about it, i am guessing this isnt normal.

www.dentalfearcentral.org

I do not know how your government assisted dental insurance work, but the first step would be to find a good dentist and have a chat and a check-up anyway. So you might try to concentrate on this first. Once you have a treatment plan and know what needs to be done you can focus on dealing with the costs. The worst thing to do would be to let your fear of costs paralyze you completely to a point of not even getting a check-up. Unknowns are worse than any bad news.