Neglected seeing a dentist for a while due to fear, now cracked tooth

[hjw2002]

Hi! Bit of a back story: I never had any issue with the dentist as a kid. Since we were registered with a local NHS dentist, any issues were sorted with little to no issues and I wasn't afraid since everything always went so smoothly. This changed a few years ago when I was getting a tooth removed and the local anesthetic didn't work. I ended up getting four injections for my mouth to go numb and the third and fourth injections made me extremely dizzy. I've never had this reaction before but it was incredibly scary. The rest of the tooth removal went okay but a short time later when I was due a check up, I opted to see a different dentist at the same practice. This dentist found several issues with my teeth that had never been spotted by the previous dentist and told me that I needed a LOT of treatment. She was pretty stern about it which freaked me out because I'd never had serious issues with my teeth before. The first treatment was a root canal but during this root canal, she ended up burning my lip by holding one of the tools down on it for at least 10 seconds. The entire root canal freaked me out alongside being burnt so I ended up never returning. My teeth weren't causing me any pain so I didn't see any reason to go back since I was too scared. My family also had bad experiences with this dentist including my mum's sinus wall being injured after a tooth extraction, my brother getting a tooth removed unnecessarily and my dad getting a filling whilst not being properly numb, causing intense pain. This didn't help with my fear.

During the pandemic, obviously I wasn't able to go to my dentist unless it was an emergency. This led to two years without being able to see a dentist at all, not due to my own fault. This resulted in my dentist kicking my family out due to not using their services. Since then, we have tried to register with a new NHS dentist but not a single dentist in my area is taking on new NHS patients. I'm also no longer under 18 so I'd now have to pay for treatment. My mum has had an abscess for months that hasn't been seen to because we can't get into any dentists in the area and we can't afford to go private.

Last night, I was eating something very crunchy when suddenly one of my molars felt weird. I assumed it was a piece of food stuck in the tooth but nope, the tooth has a chip taken out of it and there's a crack going down the middle with a loose piece on the end that feels like it's going to fall off at any point. There's no pain but I'm now terrified to eat anything or brush my teeth in case this piece falls off because I know it's going to cause a lot of pain. I can't see a dentist due to reasons I mentioned above and I can't afford to go private. My family are low income and I'm a broke university student. I'm also terrified to go in case they judge me like the last dentist did. I'm really scared this is going to get worse because I know how easily cracked teeth can lead to infections. What are my options here?

 

[linz46]

im in your shoes my life is pardon the language but its a fucking lonley place wat do you do??

 

[Whatififly]

I hadn’t been to the dentist for 10 years due to intense fear - unpleasant childhood dentist, and PTSD background. Anyway I broke my tooth last month and was terrified.

I can tell you more but essentially I’m all sorted - had a filling under sedation on Tuesday which went ok - I was scared, the dentist was amazing and actually it was ok. I was lucky that NHS did this.

If you call 111 they will find you an emergency dentist to see you for this problem. Totally get this is not ideal when worried like this - but could be a start point?