Sick and tired!

[Kt84]

Hiya, im new here

Basically im here because i am absolutely petrified of the dentist (nothing suprising or i wouldnt be here lol) but to the point that even walking past a dental surgery makes my stomach do backflips. I have had 2 very bad experiences with dentistry, an extraction and then root canal, both went wrong and both were extremely painful.
My teeth arent in the best shape, well i have maybe 4 teeth which need attention, but 1 is giving me grief, its decayed to the point where there is really no crown left, it only seems to hurt at night, but when it does theres no stopping it, even clove oil seems to do more harm than good but for some weird reason the only thing that seems to give me some relief is chewing bread (no other food) and holding it next to the tooth lol...told ya!, i know it needs to come out but even the thought of the dentist makes me feel sick, and whos to say this time it will go with no hiccups. At the moment im going to work like a zombie, im grabbing a couple of hours sleep when i get in from work because during the day it seems ok, then at night its back with avengance, its so hard to get a dentist let alone a good one and i really dont know how much longer i can stand this pain to go looking round for a dentist that a) is taking new patients and b) that i feel i can put my trust in.
Basically my main worry is, if the tooth is so decayed surely an extraction isnt going to be easy, which means there is probably no hope in hell of me putting myself through another messed up treatment, my last extraction took nearly 2hrs and in the end my head was (without my consent) forced down, you can imagine i was already hysterical so that really didnt help because i felt trapped and i had no strength left to fight him off, for days after i was in pain, but somehow i went back to another dentist (for a different tooth) and needed root canal, he told me if it hurt he would stop and give me a wee break, so i told him it was sore, and he wouldnt let me go, i was squirming all round the chair like a mad woman.
Im probably a lost cause lol, but i could really do with some encouragement, and maybe a glimmer of hope that a badly decayed tooth isnt as hard to extract as i think it will be (maybe hoping for miracles here )

Sorry to go on, but hi and its nice to know im not alone, which sometimes you do feel you are

 

[letsconnect]

Hi Kt84 ,
usually, badly decayed teeth are easier to remove - rather than harder to remove. However, it sounds like you had really bad luck with dentists in the past . Do you mind me asking, how did you find these dentists? Were they recommended to you by other people?
I don't think you're a lost cause at all. It's reasonable to expect a dentist will stop if you need a break or you are in pain. I'm sorry to hear that this didn't happen in the past.
You're not hoping for miracles - you're (very reasonably!) hoping for the standard of care that should be expected today!
There are some circumstances which may make it more difficult to get you numb (see this page: https://www.dentalfearcentral.org/fears/not-numb/ ). But it may just be that your past dentists didn't give you enough local anaesthetic to get you numb.

I hope that you will find a dentist who is caring and considerate to your needs to get your problem sorted

 

[molly]

asically my main worry is, if the tooth is so decayed surely an extraction isnt going to be easy

I had two teeth pulled today ( a molar and a wisdom), both of which were decayed to the gum line. The whole procedure took maybe 5 minutes total and the recovery is going great. I'm not having ANY pain!

 

[Kt84]

Tyvm for your responses
Im beginning to think that i maybe in some way immune to the numbing, well not totally but on my extraction i lost count of how many injections they had to give me, the dentist said she used the strongest whatever it was at one point, but i dont know if she was just saying that to try and get me to shut up thinking it was all in my head who knows. I just know on both occasions i could feel a lot of pain.
Both dentists were emergency dentists, 1 a university dental hospital, and the 2nd was a private emergency dentist (old guy), looked like he would be nice, but turned out i was wrong again lol.

I keep thinking, if they extract a decayed tooth what do they grip onto? My tooth i had removed was decayed, but had a crown, however this did break at one point and the tooth snapped in half, after that came the painful bit, the digging around.

Tyvm again

 

[brit]

There are several reasons why you may have trouble getting numb but dentists should not be carrying out procedures if you are not. If it's anatomical variation (your nerves are in a different place), then you need someone familar with advanced LA techniques to treat you as the LA has to be directed to a different area. If it was infection stopping the LA from working properly, again there are advanced techniques to get 'hot teeth' numb or antibiotics can be taken first.

On the Dentistfinder for Dundee, Gordon advised a poster to get a referral to the Special needs dentistry programme at Dundee Hospital (I'm guessing this would be different staff to those you saw at the Emergency clinic).

If you can travel within Scotland for care then we have quite a lot of recommended dentists including Mike Gow of www.whatfear.com

 

[Kt84]

Brill ty for those links. Not sure im ready to go to the dentist, i know im stupid, but in my head id rather cope with the pain and hoping for it to go away than go to the dentist for what i know will be 30mins max, im that scared

Touch wood i havent been in pain for nearly 2 days now, i dont know why, i took some of my friends strong painkillers which were prescribed (i know i shouldnt, but cocodomal etc wasnt doing anything).

Anyone had any kind of therapy for dental phobia? Id really like to know if there is anyway of getting rid of this extreme fear