D
DollyDayDream
Junior member
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2008
- Messages
- 5
New member - Desperate Request for Advice/Reassurance/Ideas/Listening Ears Please!!
I'm new and am so glad to have found you all, you seem like a really kind and supportive bunch! Sorry in advance for the mega long rant here...
I expect mine is a story you're all familiar with - my teeth are the bain of my life and consume my thoughts on a pretty much hourly basis.
As a child growing up in the 1970s it was a time when parents weren't generally speaking big into dental health and dentists seemed to be very drill happy (but to be fair to them, given my first observation, I suppose there was a lot of drilling to do!).
My dental experiences varied from mildly traumatic to hideously traumatic, injections, fillings, extractions with and without gas (which induced vomiting). My father left home when I was 6 and my mother had hideous teeth - no back teeth, a few bottom ones in a poor state and a plate of false ones at the top. She never went to the dentist herself and accompaied me to my appointments but never came into the surgery with me, choosing to wait in the waiting room instead. As a consequece, I always had only the dental nurse for support and I developed a deep fear and loathing of going. I felt alone and terrified in there. In the end I used to create such a fuss that my mother simply gave up on taking me. She never ever supervised me cleaning my teeth, and never really questioned whether I'd done it, so I was left to muddle through on my own. She always seemed more concerned about whether I'd washed my neck than my teeth!
So, decay set in. I soon had a mouth full of fillings (although somewhat miraculously at age 42 I still have 14 that aren't filled at all including one molar!) but by then that was the least of my worries. I had orthodontic problems that, due to my fear and hatred of the dentist and my mother's general lack of interest in my teeth, were getting overlooked.
I had the usual crowding of the front teeth with no room for the canines (or eye teeth) to come into line properly. I suppose this would have been easily remedied by removing the first bicuspids and whacking on a staightforward bog standard removable metal brace. I'm sure it would have all been done and dusted in 18 months, but no. It didn't get addressed - even the school dentist who we were forced to stand in line and see didn't refer me to the community dentist for treatment. So, again it wasn't addressed. By this time I'd become ashamed of my sticking out teeth. Even though many of my friends were having braces I wouldn't entertain the idea of the dentist or braces. To this day I can even remember my father saying to me once when I was about 11 "if you don't get them sorted they'll be sticking out at right angles before long" - he didn't care enough to get me sorted out though did he?
So I get into my teens and twenties and my fangs don't seem to affect me. I'm popular and outgoing and they don't seem to affect my social life or my ability to pull the boys (although who's to say I couldn't have pulled some better ones if I'd been able to flash them a really dazzling smile?).
I should point out that by this time I'd actually started looking after my teeth properly - cleaning, flossing, picking, wiping and scraping them religiously morning and night with anything I could buy or get my hands on to ensure they were as clean as a whistle. I may have looked like Count Dracularess but at least my teeth were the cleanest for miles around!
Now, old enough to realise that normal people go to the dentist and don't kick and scream, I'd also started going to the dentist again.
My dentist was a miserable old goat with no bedside manner whatsoever but his reputation in our town preceeded him and everyone seemed to acknowledge that, despite his social shortcomings, he knew what he was doing and was a good dentist - something I can testify to now. I'll always remember that first visit 24 years ago. He looked in my gob and asked me if people made fun of me and called me "Dracula", which they didn't because I'd learnt to do a damn good job of concealing my fangs and if people did notice them they were far too polite to say anything. He went on to ask me if I wanted to do anything about them. We briefly discussed the possibilities of orthodontic treatment, the benefits of which he told me would take far longer to accomplish for an adult than they would for a child as the bone was harder. After considering this for about 2 seconds I told him that no one teased me about my fangs (which was true) and that they didn't stop me from doing anything I wanted to do and that o that basis I would be leaving them where they were. And they are in exactly the same place today. The funny thing is that back then they didn't really concern me anywhere near as much as they do now. I've grown to really hate them. They make me feel awful about myself and the list of ways in which they restrict my life is endless. Not being able to smile properly and never having a photo taken are the obvious ones but there are soooo many more besides.
Anyway, my miserable old goat of a dentist saw me through 24 years of check ups and treatment, the necessity for which years of childhood neglect had bestowed on my poor old teeth. This resulted in a few more fillings (some needing to be redone) 2 crowns, and a root filling in one of my front incisors. Somewhere in the middle of all this I also had all 4 wisdom teeth removed in hospital under GA (the tiny little 5th they couldn't get to so it's now come down in the space to join the rest of my dysfunctional teeth!).
So today, I've reached the ripe old age of 42 and my teeth are all still there. Some are heavily filled with hideous amalgam fillings, some less heavily with white fillings, two are porcelain crowned and one front one is dead (but still surviving very well after being root filled 16 years ago). Some are sentitive too due to a bit of gum recession although I always get top marks on the gum score at checkups! And of course not forgetting my hideous fangs - well they don't really look that hideous it's just that no one else has got anything like them so I feel like a freak of nature, or a social pariah.
Imagine this - I've never discussed them, or the way they make me feel and the negative affect they have on my life, with anyone, even my own husband who is my rock and with whom I share absolutely everything. They are like my deep dark secret that I can't confide in anyone because I feel so ashamed. God, I must sound so messed up!
My worst fear has recently been realised because my dear miserable old goat of a dentist has retired
At my final checkup he told me that although I had a lot of work in my mouth I kept my teeth very clean and that if I kept doing what I'd been doing everything should be fine.
So off I go to find a new dentist. I counsel opinions from all and sundry in the hope that I'll get a recommendation from someone for a fantastic dentist and I have booked in with a woman who a work colleague uses and who claims to have a particular interest in nervous patients.
My problem is that my fear now no longer comes from the prospect of treatment - I've had far too much done now to have a fear of that anymore. Now it comes from the fear of the dentist looking in my mouth and thinking "what the f***!!" What will she think of me keeping those fangs?!! And what if the dental nurse gets a look at them when she's sitting beside me smugly, with her own perfect teeth, filling out her little chart and thinks "eeeewwww" get a load of her teeth!!". The thought fills me with horror and I just know I am going to feel humiliated and mortified in equal measure at that first checkup. I'm finding myself waking up in the middle of the night worrying about it.
I'm also worried that she'll take x rays and decide that I need loads more work doing when in fact my teeth feel OK and the last work I had done was in 2005 when I had a crown and the time before that was 1998 when I had the other crown - the time before that was my root canal in 1992! I know my teeth are fine - the fangs just make them look crap and make me feel like a freak! I also don't want to go to the hygenist because that's just another person to see my hideous teeth. This dentist is private so won;t clean them herself whereas my old one was NHS and cleaned them hinself as part of the check up fee (not that I felt they needed cleaning really as they never felt much differnt afterwards). So do I need to bother with the hygenist anyway?
This leads me to my final vexed question - what can I do about my bloody fangs? Can I have them out? If I did it would leave a small gap between the second incisors and the first bicuspids. What could be done to fill those gaps? I know I can't possibly face braces at my age. That would so humiliating because then I'd have to discuss the dreaded fangs with people, which is just too huge to contemplate and the thought nerarly makes me start to hyperventilate! What is to be done? I'm rapidly getting towards beyond despair.
I want to be able to smile at the graduation ceremonies/weddings of my children (whom I hasten to add have perfect teeth because I've lavished on them all the meticulous loving care and attention that my own never had). I certainly couldn't smile at my own graduation and wedding - my fangs saw to it that I dreaded both occasions.
I'm sorry this message is soooo long but it's the first time I've been able to share any of this with anyone at all. I can only do it here because it's anoymous and I feel this is a place where no one will judge me.
I feel like a freak, these days more and more I feel that these fangs are now actually ruining my life and affecting my quality of life too. They make me moody and miserable and quite despondant and I hate looking at myself in the mirror.
So anyone who is still awake - help!!! (I sincerely hope my rambligs haven't sent you all to sleep).
I'm new and am so glad to have found you all, you seem like a really kind and supportive bunch! Sorry in advance for the mega long rant here...
I expect mine is a story you're all familiar with - my teeth are the bain of my life and consume my thoughts on a pretty much hourly basis.
As a child growing up in the 1970s it was a time when parents weren't generally speaking big into dental health and dentists seemed to be very drill happy (but to be fair to them, given my first observation, I suppose there was a lot of drilling to do!).
My dental experiences varied from mildly traumatic to hideously traumatic, injections, fillings, extractions with and without gas (which induced vomiting). My father left home when I was 6 and my mother had hideous teeth - no back teeth, a few bottom ones in a poor state and a plate of false ones at the top. She never went to the dentist herself and accompaied me to my appointments but never came into the surgery with me, choosing to wait in the waiting room instead. As a consequece, I always had only the dental nurse for support and I developed a deep fear and loathing of going. I felt alone and terrified in there. In the end I used to create such a fuss that my mother simply gave up on taking me. She never ever supervised me cleaning my teeth, and never really questioned whether I'd done it, so I was left to muddle through on my own. She always seemed more concerned about whether I'd washed my neck than my teeth!
So, decay set in. I soon had a mouth full of fillings (although somewhat miraculously at age 42 I still have 14 that aren't filled at all including one molar!) but by then that was the least of my worries. I had orthodontic problems that, due to my fear and hatred of the dentist and my mother's general lack of interest in my teeth, were getting overlooked.
I had the usual crowding of the front teeth with no room for the canines (or eye teeth) to come into line properly. I suppose this would have been easily remedied by removing the first bicuspids and whacking on a staightforward bog standard removable metal brace. I'm sure it would have all been done and dusted in 18 months, but no. It didn't get addressed - even the school dentist who we were forced to stand in line and see didn't refer me to the community dentist for treatment. So, again it wasn't addressed. By this time I'd become ashamed of my sticking out teeth. Even though many of my friends were having braces I wouldn't entertain the idea of the dentist or braces. To this day I can even remember my father saying to me once when I was about 11 "if you don't get them sorted they'll be sticking out at right angles before long" - he didn't care enough to get me sorted out though did he?
So I get into my teens and twenties and my fangs don't seem to affect me. I'm popular and outgoing and they don't seem to affect my social life or my ability to pull the boys (although who's to say I couldn't have pulled some better ones if I'd been able to flash them a really dazzling smile?).
I should point out that by this time I'd actually started looking after my teeth properly - cleaning, flossing, picking, wiping and scraping them religiously morning and night with anything I could buy or get my hands on to ensure they were as clean as a whistle. I may have looked like Count Dracularess but at least my teeth were the cleanest for miles around!
Now, old enough to realise that normal people go to the dentist and don't kick and scream, I'd also started going to the dentist again.
My dentist was a miserable old goat with no bedside manner whatsoever but his reputation in our town preceeded him and everyone seemed to acknowledge that, despite his social shortcomings, he knew what he was doing and was a good dentist - something I can testify to now. I'll always remember that first visit 24 years ago. He looked in my gob and asked me if people made fun of me and called me "Dracula", which they didn't because I'd learnt to do a damn good job of concealing my fangs and if people did notice them they were far too polite to say anything. He went on to ask me if I wanted to do anything about them. We briefly discussed the possibilities of orthodontic treatment, the benefits of which he told me would take far longer to accomplish for an adult than they would for a child as the bone was harder. After considering this for about 2 seconds I told him that no one teased me about my fangs (which was true) and that they didn't stop me from doing anything I wanted to do and that o that basis I would be leaving them where they were. And they are in exactly the same place today. The funny thing is that back then they didn't really concern me anywhere near as much as they do now. I've grown to really hate them. They make me feel awful about myself and the list of ways in which they restrict my life is endless. Not being able to smile properly and never having a photo taken are the obvious ones but there are soooo many more besides.
Anyway, my miserable old goat of a dentist saw me through 24 years of check ups and treatment, the necessity for which years of childhood neglect had bestowed on my poor old teeth. This resulted in a few more fillings (some needing to be redone) 2 crowns, and a root filling in one of my front incisors. Somewhere in the middle of all this I also had all 4 wisdom teeth removed in hospital under GA (the tiny little 5th they couldn't get to so it's now come down in the space to join the rest of my dysfunctional teeth!).
So today, I've reached the ripe old age of 42 and my teeth are all still there. Some are heavily filled with hideous amalgam fillings, some less heavily with white fillings, two are porcelain crowned and one front one is dead (but still surviving very well after being root filled 16 years ago). Some are sentitive too due to a bit of gum recession although I always get top marks on the gum score at checkups! And of course not forgetting my hideous fangs - well they don't really look that hideous it's just that no one else has got anything like them so I feel like a freak of nature, or a social pariah.
Imagine this - I've never discussed them, or the way they make me feel and the negative affect they have on my life, with anyone, even my own husband who is my rock and with whom I share absolutely everything. They are like my deep dark secret that I can't confide in anyone because I feel so ashamed. God, I must sound so messed up!
My worst fear has recently been realised because my dear miserable old goat of a dentist has retired
At my final checkup he told me that although I had a lot of work in my mouth I kept my teeth very clean and that if I kept doing what I'd been doing everything should be fine.So off I go to find a new dentist. I counsel opinions from all and sundry in the hope that I'll get a recommendation from someone for a fantastic dentist and I have booked in with a woman who a work colleague uses and who claims to have a particular interest in nervous patients.
My problem is that my fear now no longer comes from the prospect of treatment - I've had far too much done now to have a fear of that anymore. Now it comes from the fear of the dentist looking in my mouth and thinking "what the f***!!" What will she think of me keeping those fangs?!! And what if the dental nurse gets a look at them when she's sitting beside me smugly, with her own perfect teeth, filling out her little chart and thinks "eeeewwww" get a load of her teeth!!". The thought fills me with horror and I just know I am going to feel humiliated and mortified in equal measure at that first checkup. I'm finding myself waking up in the middle of the night worrying about it.
I'm also worried that she'll take x rays and decide that I need loads more work doing when in fact my teeth feel OK and the last work I had done was in 2005 when I had a crown and the time before that was 1998 when I had the other crown - the time before that was my root canal in 1992! I know my teeth are fine - the fangs just make them look crap and make me feel like a freak! I also don't want to go to the hygenist because that's just another person to see my hideous teeth. This dentist is private so won;t clean them herself whereas my old one was NHS and cleaned them hinself as part of the check up fee (not that I felt they needed cleaning really as they never felt much differnt afterwards). So do I need to bother with the hygenist anyway?
This leads me to my final vexed question - what can I do about my bloody fangs? Can I have them out? If I did it would leave a small gap between the second incisors and the first bicuspids. What could be done to fill those gaps? I know I can't possibly face braces at my age. That would so humiliating because then I'd have to discuss the dreaded fangs with people, which is just too huge to contemplate and the thought nerarly makes me start to hyperventilate! What is to be done? I'm rapidly getting towards beyond despair.
I want to be able to smile at the graduation ceremonies/weddings of my children (whom I hasten to add have perfect teeth because I've lavished on them all the meticulous loving care and attention that my own never had). I certainly couldn't smile at my own graduation and wedding - my fangs saw to it that I dreaded both occasions.
I'm sorry this message is soooo long but it's the first time I've been able to share any of this with anyone at all. I can only do it here because it's anoymous and I feel this is a place where no one will judge me.
I feel like a freak, these days more and more I feel that these fangs are now actually ruining my life and affecting my quality of life too. They make me moody and miserable and quite despondant and I hate looking at myself in the mirror.
So anyone who is still awake - help!!! (I sincerely hope my rambligs haven't sent you all to sleep).
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![[smiley=welcome.gif]](/forum/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/dfcsmilies/welcome.gif "Welcome [smiley=welcome.gif]")
,
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? I hope you'll find you really like her!
