Successful first dental visit after 10 years!

[emuhleigh]

So, before today I had not been to the dentist in a decade. I finally got up the nerve to call for an appointment last week, and just went in today. I was so nervous the past few days and couldn't hardly stand it driving there today. I was imagining the worst: gum disease, root canals, extractions, you name it.

Luckily I only had to wait about 5-10 minutes in the waiting room. My dental hygienest was very, very nice and her excellent manner helped me to calm down a bit. The cleaning was kinda painful - as you can imagine, I had some significant tartar buildup after 10 years with no professional cleaning. I knew I had two broken molars, both on the right side, but I expected her to tell me there were about 5 cavities to go with those, at the least.

Turns out, I had no cavities! I am amazed, given my pretty poor diet and a lack of dental visits. The dentist came in after the cleaning and was nice as well. She actually said that my teeth were in pretty good shape overall - except for the two broken molars. Apparently the decay is too significant for root canals/crowns, and I am going to have to have both of those extracted. Also, I am going to have the two wisdom teeth behind those molars extracted as well. The dentist told me they are coming in impacted, and that probably contributed to the molars breaking. I am going to have these all done in one day, under IV sedation.

Overall, its better news than I could have dreamed! If you are like me, you probably imagine the very worst - I stared at my gums in the mirror long enough to convince myself I had severe periodontitis - but the fear turned out to be much worse than the reality.

 

[patient]

yes we always fear the worst and we hear stories from other people who have teeth in bad shape and think oh dear what if mine are like that.

My colleague at work recently had to have 4 teeth out due to decay that could not be fixed. And on top of that, he had two infections.

I also spoke to a young woman who has dead straight shiny very white teeth all even and I said to her I wish my teeth looked like yours. She thanked me and went on to say that although they look really nice she has a lot of trouble with them so looks can be deceiving

 

[camilla2013]

Thanks for sharing your successful story.
I usually do my visit once a year