My mind won’t relax, can anyone relate?

[FearfulGums123]

Hi all,

This may come across a little rambly but I’ve been struggling for the last week.

I noticed two of my teeth had a weird dark edge (one on the top and one at the bottom). My gums were also receding a little.

Ive had braces when I was younger and my parents didn’t know much about dental hygiene beyond brushing daily so I never got taught about flossing - that’s my fault, not theirs.

When I was about 19, I had really bad toothache and had to get it extracted by an emergency dentist (on my birthday of all days!), he kept injecting in the wrong place and never numbed the area so it hurt like hell. That pretty much scared me. NHS dentist appointments were so hard to find so it slowly began becoming less important in my life to register etc.

Cut to now (32 years old), I’ve become increasingly aware because my wisdom teeth have been giving me a dull pain. I’ve had weird ear aches and sinusitis. I’ve started flossing twice a day, I’ve invested in a sonic toothbrush and a water floss. My gums don’t bleed except the back wisdom ones. I’m so worried I have periodontitis, all my teeth are gonna have to come out. I wiggle my tooth and it moves if I use my fingers, which worries me even more! I have an appointment on 22nd April but this wait is killing me. Luckily the dentist seems very nice.

I keep googling, YouTubing, comparing my teeth to what people have posted here.

Please can someone tell me any successful stories or moments? I think because my mind is diving into the deep end, I’ve convinced myself that I have like 80% bone loss and it’s the worst thing right now.

 

[kitkat]

Hi!
The waiting is truly the hardest part and unfortunately we have access to too much information on the internet these days! It is great that you have invested in some good dental hygiene tools and practices at home and it’s a very good sign that most of your gums are not bleeding. Wisdom teeth are very hard to care for, hence why most often they end up being removed at some point. Our minds naturally always want to jump to worst case scenario which is almost always not true. The good thing is if there is anything going on, modern dentistry has a lot to offer for stabilizing or even reversing conditions. Also it is worth mentioning that you are quite young so it would be very unlikely that you have progressed to any type of advanced stage of bone loss unless you have some kind of vitamin or calcium deficiency. I hope that counter reasoning helps a bit.

Please let us know how you get on after your appointment!