S
Skittles123
Junior member
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2019
- Messages
- 5
- Location
- Missouri
Hello all. I'm 35 years old and until very recently I hadnt been to the dentist in over 20 years. My parents didn't take us much as kids and as teenagers we weren't asked or made to go at all. And of course as a teenager I was thrilled to not have to go. As I got older I worked many jobs over the years but never had the option of dental insurance until about 3 years ago. So i signed up for the insurance, but when it came down to it by then I was too ashamed, humiliated and embarrassed by how long I'd gone without going to a dentist and how bad I'd let my teeth get... So I just continued to push it out of my mind as much as possible and await the day I was forced to go and have them all pulled out and get dentures. In my mind I was pretty sure id probably already waited to long to save them at that point anyway. Fast forward to a few weeks ago when my sister confessed to me that one of her front teeth that looked perfectly healthy and had no pain mind you, fell out while she was eating an egg roll during her anniversary dinner with her husband. She was in tears, freaking out and embarrassed. She and I were pretty much in the same boat with how long it had been since we'd been to the dentist. So i understood all to well and felt so bad for her. This was a terrifying scenario that I'd imagined happening to myself many many times... Well, long story short she had no choice but to go to the dentist and face her fears. She told me all about it and how it wasn't nearly as bad as she'd thought and so on. I still wans't totally convinced but realized this was my time to latch onto my my fear of what happened to her, happening to me, and force myself to make an appointment. So after lurking this forum for sevral days and building up my courage from all the amazing posts, I bit the bullet and made my first appointent for about 2 weeks ago. I didn't think it was possible but it truly wasnt as horrible as I had imagined. Everyone was super nice and I didn't feel judged or looked down on whatsoever. I felt like everyone just genuinely wanted to help me. I was honestly shocked. No lectures, no judgment, just kindness. It also turned out that my teeth weren't nearly as bad as I had imagined. One broken tooth that needs to be removed (there wasn't much left of it), 9 cavities to be filled, and eventually the removal of my wisdom teeth. Plus they also said I need a deep cleaning/root scaling and that I have some bone loss from so many years of plaque and bacteria building up below the gum line... hence the urgent need for the deep cleaning. They said I will need cleaning every 3 months also do to bone loss. Not great. But overall not nearly as horrible as I had imagined. Considering I thought they might just call the whole thing a wash and go for dentures. They made me up a dental plan which had me doing the root scaling first in 2 seperate appointments, then 2 more appointments of fillings. Unfortunately The first available appointments for the cleanings weren't until late July though. And oddly now that i know what needs to be done and I see better teeth on the horizon, im actaully really excited to get everything done. I went ahead and booked them though and they said they would call if something opened up sooner. I decided to call today and go ahead and make the appointments for my fillings too (didn't want to get stuck waiting another month and a half for those) and the lady told me she could get me in to do both of those next week. Yay! So I said sure let's do it. But then after I hung up I begin to wonder if that was wise. Should i be doing the deep cleanings first before the composite fillings? Will the cleaning change the color of my teeth? Especially since its been so long since they've had any sort of proffesional cleaning done to them? From what i understand they match the composite fillings material to the color of your teeth, right? So if they do that first and then the deep cleaning makes my teeth whiter or cleaner will the fillings no longer match and look obvious? 5 or 6 of them are right up front on top and will be very visible. Does anyone happen to have experience with this that could give me any advice? I'm still excited but starting to stress a little over this now... I just want my teeth to look decent for a change.