K
karichan
Member
- Joined
- May 26, 2019
- Messages
- 30
- Location
- usa
I need a dental scaling and cleaning, bad. But I am utterly petrified. I have dentophobia, iatrophobia, and trypanophobia. I also can't swallow medicine pills. I developed these phobias because of a head injury, plus intensive surgery and short stint in the pediatric ICU, plus a week or torture from IVs and doctors forcing me to swallow giant horsepills. The dentophobia is related to this because continuous bad experiences with a family dentist over the years who made every last cleaning I ever endured painful and terrifying. (I'm currently sobbing rn so sorry for any mistypings) When I displayed resistance or told the dentist or my dad I was scared, they would threaten shots inside my mouth and strapping me down if I moved. Compounded fear over those years instilled this phobia so deep that I went years with a broken wisdom tooth for 8 years (it broke little by little over time until it was a tiny sliver exposed, the gum was growing over the broken parts) until I finally got a hold of an oral surgeon to completely knock me out to remove all 4 at once. My husband and a friend, who also has a son that extremely phonic like me, to be there with me. I was given meds to calm me(I had to crush them since they only came in pill form) and my husband, friend, 2 nurses and the anesthesiologist had to restrain me to put the IV in. The procedure was relatively uneventful afterwards and I went on vacation 3 days later. I'm rambling now so I'm sorry. I'm hoping mostly for words of encouragement to book the appointment and maybe a relatively accurate description of what to expect a normal, not painful cleaning and scaling should feel like. I don't mind a bit of pain but I would leave my dentist when I was younger with severely sore and bleeding gums, not able to eat for 2-3 days afterward because of the pain. Please tell me that that's not normal and it's not supposed to be that way.