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I did it. Took me 14 years.

S

Scott’s Tots

Junior member
Joined
Jul 2, 2018
Messages
1
Hi everyone,

I would like to share some of my latest experiences, hoping that someone who finds themselves in a similar situation might read it.
I’m 31 years old and just completed a number of dentist appointments.

Before that, the last time I saw a dentist was too long ago to remember – I’m guessing it was about 14 years ago.
I used to have excellent teeth as a child and as long as my parents took care of everything and made me go to the dentist, everything was fine. I had maybe 2-3 “uncomfortable” dentist appointments but nothing even close to traumatic or anything like that.
Also, for the last couple of years at least, I took really good care of my teeth. Daily flossing, brushing, all that good stuff. I just didn’t go to see a dentist.
Inevitably, I ran into some problems starting 1-2 years ago. Little pieces “chipped” out of one of my wisdom teeth and I started getting a very bad taste in my mouth that I fought mostly with Listerine breath strips every day.
Then a larger piece broke off of a front molar – I could feel half the tooth missing with my tongue but it was on the inside so no one could see it.
I kind of got used to it and still delayed going to the dentist.

I would say it was about 10% fear, but the rest was all embarrassment. I expected to be berated almost like a school kid that gets sent to the principal.
How did I let this get so bad.

When a couple more chips fell out of the wisdom tooth I decided to make an appointment.
I should note that I was never in any pain (maybe that was a bad thing since pain might have made me see a dentist sooner)
I decided to “man up” and go the same dentist that treats everyone in my family and a lot of my friends. I personally had not been there before. I live in a small town (of about 3,000 people) and most people here know me.
As you can imagine, that didn’t exactly help ease my fear of being embarrassed ;)

So I went there.
Another problem: I don’t know if it is a regional thing but where I live all the hygienists and the assistants are female, between 20 and 30 and super attractive. I’m not kidding.
That really didn’t help with the embarrassment.

I got called into one of the rooms and told the assistant that I hadn’t been to the dentist in “a couple of years” (bit of an underestimation)
She checked everything out, gave me an X-ray and I asked her if my teeth could still be saved. (I tried to lighten the mood I suppose)
The answer was “yes” and she told me I would need to come back a couple of times and for now we could do either a filling or extract a wisdom tooth.

That was it – she was totally cool about everything. No embarrassing questions, no lecture. I was so relieved.
After that I got a cleaning and it turned out that a lot of the stuff in my mouth that worried me was just “junk” a toothbrush and floss won’t get rid of.

At that time the dentist came into the room and decided to do a filling for the front molar that I thought was beyond saving. It only needed a filling, nothing more. It’s totally fine now.
During the procedure he briefly mentioned “from now on you will take better care of your teeth. You only have one set and it can get very expensive”. That was the whole “lecture” and I was OK with it.

I went back there a couple of times, had 2 wisdom teeth pulled and a couple of fillings put in. I need one more appointment (I think).
Everything was completely painless, it just felt weird.

Hope this helps someone…I am so happy I manned up. The reward is priceless. I’m going every 6 months from now on.
People told me “it’s not going to be as bad as you think” and I read this online a lot – guess what, it’s absolutely true.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!
 
Good job, Scott's Tots!
 
Congrats on a great appointment!!
 
Good stuff! Hope all continues to go well for you. You are absolutely right in what you say about things not being as bad as they might first seem; the difficult bit is just "doing it anyway" having felt the fear. Dentistry has marched on so much technologically in the last few years that, as I found only yesterday, even seemingly gruesome procedures are now a walk in the park! All the best, Simon XX
 
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