• Dental Phobia Support

    Welcome! This is an online support group for anyone who is has a severe fear of the dentist or dental treatment. Please note that this is NOT a general dental problems or health anxiety forum! You can find a list of them here.

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JUST DO IT!!!

S

smeyers1991

Junior member
Joined
Jan 20, 2022
Messages
3
Location
Florida
I can't even begin to describe how relieved I feel to say that I have faced my dental fears today! I went in for a new patient exam (and had to wait a month from the time i booked the appointment) to a highly regarded dentist in town. he literally had a 5.0 rating EVERYWHERE and i could not find even one person who had something bad to say about him.

Anyway, a little about my fear, I have Cerebral Palsy that causes muscle spasms when pain is felt in any area of my body. Specifically when it comes to my teeth, they are extremely sensitive ever since having my braces removed, and right after having them removed I went to a dentist who completely scraped and poked each of my teeth until my entire body was shaking. Then while I was shaking he tried to force my legs to stop (impossible and he refused to stop when i told him how much it hurt. Needless to say, this experience had completely turned me away from dental care and made it hard for me to even THINK about dental care of any kind because any time i would thin of dentists, that horrible day would come back in my memory and I would feel the pain all over again.

Fast forward a few years (like 5) and I had no choice but to go in for a root canal when one of my teeth began to hurt. I went to a very nice dentist and explained my fears and advised I would need to be completely numbed before being touched. He agreed and it was one of the best experiences, pain free and I was good. I even trusted him so much that I let him remove my wisdom teeth and had no issues with that. I finally felt relieved to have found someone I loved. Unfortunately we ended up having to move to get away from an abusive situation and again, there i was, dentistless. fast forward to now, 4 years later and now I have a 8 month old daughter and I NEVER EVER EVER want her to have to live with the burden of this fear. So I used her as my motivation to stand up and face this fear once again. I went to a dentist that literally had over 200+ google 5.0 reviews. I literally could not find one negative thing that anyone had to say about him. I decided to give him a shot (before settling on sedation, which of course isnt covered by insurance and costs a lot!) I am SO GLAD I trusted my gut and these reviews AND WENT TO THE APPOINTMENT!! I of course started to cry whil explaining to the dentist why it had been so long since my last proper cleaning. He treated me with the utmost care, concern and gentle compassion I've ever experienced by anyone, let alone a dentist. The exam, xrays and cleaning were literally PAINLESS because they took such extra gentle care.

I went in thinking I had gum disease, and I was for sure I needed a deep cleaning (it was previously recommended by the dentist I liked). Turns out NO GUM DISEASE, NO BONE LOSS AND NO DEEP CLEANING NEEDED. The dentist assured me that after I address the few small cavities that are present, I am good to go and will resume with regular cleanings every 6 months. It just goes to show that your mind can play tricks and overthinking and overreading on google (all things I did, lol) can make things seem a lot worse than they actually turn out to be.

I share my story in hopes that it will help someone muster up the courage to face this fear. My greatest suggestion is to find a reason for facing the fear. In my case, I'm using my daughter, and the fact that by the time its time for her first dental visit, mommy will be going regularly too, so hopefully she does NOT develop a fear and we can both keep each other going :)

Going back to my title of the thread, to anyone wanting to take the first step and going to that first appointment, JUST DO IT!!! The feeling of immense relief and accomplishment that you will feel is indescribable. For once in my lifetime, I can confidently say I am not scared of going back to the dentist!!
 
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