Major anxiety with dentist after years of not brushing daily

[dirrinson]

Hello!

I'm a 19 year old male who has major anxiety towards most things but dentists especially, for most of my life I never brushed my teeth, up until I was 16 - 17 I would only brush on occasion otherwise I would just ignore it. This has of course made a lot of my teeth decayed and have a lot of cavities in a lot of them, I went to the dentist about a year ago and got one of them filled which went completely fine but then the next filling started causing pain while the drill was going, my dentist gave me more numbing but unfortunately it was still very painful, she temporarily filled it and I've not been back since. For the last few months I have gotten into a habit of brushing day and night but of course the damage is still there and I'm concerned about getting that fixed.

I asked her at the time of my last appointment (a year ago) if I would be able to get sedation to get my teeth worked on as she said it's most likely possible to save a lot of my teeth if not all however she said that if I get sedation then they would just end up taking most of my teeth out, this is terrifying as I can't handle the dentist normally but I don't want all my teeth getting taken out at 19, I want to call my dentist soon and ask if it's in any way possible that a sedation could be done without losing most of my teeth but I'm worried they will say no.

I don't know what I should do here though and would love advice, thanks

 

[Gordon]

Find a dentist that suits your needs better? There are some articles on here about finding a phobic friendly dentist.
Their comment about sedation is rubbish, although it does apply if you were to need a general anaesthetic not sedation.
Last thing, brushing your teeth hasn't really got much to do with decay, it's mainly down to diet, so while you shouldn't beat yourself up about getting decay due to not brushing, you need to take a look at your diet to prevent more decay in future.