Hi,
I’m new to this forum and have been reading posts and I find your reply helpful. I am terrified of anything teeth/dentist related. I’ve always been anxious, especially at the dentist. I have full blown panic attacks where I can’t breathe and I end up sobbing and hyperventilating. About 6 months ago I started getting daily headaches as 230pm due to jaw pain. I ended up seeing a tmj specialist. He was fabulous and the ONLY thing we did was get impressions. I full on panicked, gagged, and threw up all while sobbing uncontrollably and had a massive panic attack. I warned them that was going to happen and I have no control over it. They were super nice about it but it was embarrassing and so stressful, which I was anticipating.
Let me interject that I am a mental health professional so I know all about anxiety and have tried everything from medication to deep breathing to meditation. The full gammot. At this point the only way I can do anything dental related is to have someone make the appointment for me and drive me there and hold my hand the whole time and just know that I will have a panic attack.
I had the HORRIBLE experience last night of breaking a tooth. My filling came out and I have been experiencing panic attacks every hour since. My friend is going to schedule me an appointment sometime this week but the ONLY way I can think this working out is if they knock me out. I can’t even think about any of this without hyperventilating and crying.
Your response reminded me that this is all in my head, I know, and that my dentist will do the best work they can do. What best work can I do to be a good patient? I have to get this taken care of, I know, and I don’t think I can do it without being knocked out. And even then, I’ve never done it that way and I have this feeling that even if I get knocked out it won’t be enough and I’ll wake up in the middle of a procedure. I’m not trying to exaggerate, when I was younger I broke my leg and I woke up too early and remember the surgeon freaking out saying I was supposed to be out. The tube was still in my throat and everything.
So my fears are not unfounded, and I am trying to be realistic and practical in knowing that I have to take care of this, however, I am having a rough time managing my anxiety and panic right now. Any help or reminders are appreciated.
Hi Terrifiedofteeth

,
sorry to read about your difficult situation. Fighting a phobia is one thing but having to do so while a problem is present just makes things worse. I also understand your fear of waking up too early, as this is what happened to you.
I am glad you managed to attend your tmj appointment (hopefully you got your guard by now and got rid of the pain) and glad to read your dental team treated you kindly and with understanding. I get the sense of embarrassment and the amount of stress you were in, but hopefully you see what an achievement it is and had celebrated it.
There are two chapters to your story, I can see it's firstly about how could you get your broken tooth treated in a way you can cope with and secondly how to get yourself being able to cope with the topic as such and reach a state of being able to go without getting a panic attack. In the state you are in now it sounds like getting sedation is the way to go. It's awful that your experience with a broken leg prevents you from feeling confident about sedation. It might be the best idea to have a chat with your dentist about this and let him/her explain how they can make sure this won't happen during your procedure. There are many kinds of sedation in dentistry. If they use iv sedation, you won't really be unconscious like during a GA but will be relaxed and won't remember anything. Talk to your doctor about this and let them give you all information you need to feel capable of getting through it.
The second chapter is the long term thing. It's about how to make yourself being able to cope with visits. You mentioned you had tried everything and as you are a mental health professional you will know the best about options. I was just wondering whether finding a kind caring and sensitive dentist willing to work with you and then going in really small steps in terms of systematic desensitization. I however appreciate that finding a dentist that works in this way is not the easiest task either. You know yourself best and you know which things are ok, which are scary and which would trigger a panic attack. Knowing this is good because it shows you what would be the next easiest step (once you have no acute problems and can spend some time solving this issue).
I am a huge fan of systematic desensitization with a patient dentist willing to work with phobic patients because it is what worked for me. It was hard, it took a long time and effort on both sides (mine and my dentist) and I can't say my anxiety vanished, but the difference between myself back then and now is huge. Thinking of my first appointment, it took one month of email contact with my dentist to get there, it took more than half an hour of a chat about my fears and worries and past experiences to even allow an exam and I got a panic attack just from the chair moving. I saw my dentist for a short desensitizing appointment every two to three weeks and it was still a lot of emails in between as I wouldn't be able to talk during initial appointments. We were literally planning and preparing every session and went just at a pace that I was able to deal with to avoid things like me getting out of control mentally, quitting along the way or not being able to remember anything afterwards.
If you look at our
advisory board, there are dentists who are experienced with the most severe cases of dental phobia. We have Gordon who worked in dentistry for special needs for many years, we have Mike Gow who works with anything from hypnosis to sedation and treats patients who wasn't able to get treated anywhere else, we have Lincoln who had a new patient consultation in somebody's car once because they weren't able to get to the surgery, we have Fraser Hendrie who designed a New Nervous Patient program and an E-Course to help people get past their fears, we have Dave Carbonell who is a clinical psychologist specialized in treating fear and phobias and wrote a Panic Attacks Workbook and those are just few names. You will also find a lot of success stories here from people who are in a similar situation as you.
So given the fact that there are so many professionals out there who dedicated their work to helping nervous patients, I would like to encourage you to find someone who can work with you at a pace that is comfortable to you and in a way you need, there must be someone in your area as well. There are a lot of articles and posts about how to approach this. You can also start a journal in the Journal section or open a thread in the Support section to help and support.
Keeping my fingers tightly crossed for you to be able to get the tooth treated, do keep us posted
(and this post is again far longer than I wanted it to be so sorry for that

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