R
rtuesday
Junior member
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2018
- Messages
- 2
Some background for my anxiety: I had one dentist I saw as a child and then for a few years as a teenager/young adult. She was AMAZING. When I was in middle school, my family switched to a dentist who was a relative of a friend and made me SO UNCOMFORTABLE (and gave me a mouth full of amalgam, what nightmare). I was relieved when we switched back. And then, when I actually felt good about going to the dentist (I actually had a couple visits where I DIDN'T have any cavities, which was new and exciting for me!), my dad decided to switch our family over to a different dentist because they were "cheaper." And that was basically the worst thing to ever happen to me. Not only was my anxiety ramped up to 100, the actual dental work I received there was awful. Almost every filling I received there broke and had to be redone. (The dentist joked at one point and said "Have you been eating rocks?" I didn't think it was very funny as a self-conscious 19 year old girl in pain, for the record.) Even when they didn't need to be redone, I'd have to go in and get them readjusted because they didn't align it to my bite properly. One filling broke for the SECOND TIME, after I was off my parents' insurance, and I walked around in excruciating pain for over a year (taking the max dosage of ibuprofen and excedrin together every single day for at least a year) before I finally got the courage to go in for an appointment. At that point, my options were either getting a root canal or an extraction. With no insurance, I didn't really have any other choice but the latter.
So I'm scared of A: having work done and then IMMEDIATELY having to go back and get it redone in an endless cycle, and B: having another extraction. The last one really fucked me up because the tooth could have been saved, but I didn't have any other choice.
I moved to a new city and only got a job with actual benefits less than a year ago. Then it was a matter of finding a dentist I felt like I could trust. I finally did via a friend. He won me over by actually calling me back in the middle of his vacation when I left a phone message terrified about my mouth bleeding, then called back a few days later to make sure I was okay. So, a couple days ago, when I was finally able to go in for a cleaning, surprise: after four years of not being able to afford a dentist visit, I need two root canals, a crown, and an unspecified number of fillings (but definitely several). I'm terrified. I spent the entire day after the early morning appointment in tears. I've went in to dentist offices and had to get a lot of work done, and even had a root canal/crown done before, but it's never been this bad. And the hygienist (the dentist wasn't in that day) was very blunt about "yeah your insurance isn't going to cover all this." I feel like she *tried* to be nice because I was in tears (there was also a lot of "it's okay, you're here now, that's all that matters" too, to be fair), but it wasn't enough to make me not feel like an anxious disaster.
I don't feel like any of my friends really get HOW MUCH going to the dentist terrifies me, both from an emotional and financial standpoint. And I know everyone talks about how it's never too late, but I feel like even though I've spent the last several years trying to take good care of my teeth because I didn't have insurance, it still wasn't enough and now it's too late for anything to matter.
So I'm scared of A: having work done and then IMMEDIATELY having to go back and get it redone in an endless cycle, and B: having another extraction. The last one really fucked me up because the tooth could have been saved, but I didn't have any other choice.
I moved to a new city and only got a job with actual benefits less than a year ago. Then it was a matter of finding a dentist I felt like I could trust. I finally did via a friend. He won me over by actually calling me back in the middle of his vacation when I left a phone message terrified about my mouth bleeding, then called back a few days later to make sure I was okay. So, a couple days ago, when I was finally able to go in for a cleaning, surprise: after four years of not being able to afford a dentist visit, I need two root canals, a crown, and an unspecified number of fillings (but definitely several). I'm terrified. I spent the entire day after the early morning appointment in tears. I've went in to dentist offices and had to get a lot of work done, and even had a root canal/crown done before, but it's never been this bad. And the hygienist (the dentist wasn't in that day) was very blunt about "yeah your insurance isn't going to cover all this." I feel like she *tried* to be nice because I was in tears (there was also a lot of "it's okay, you're here now, that's all that matters" too, to be fair), but it wasn't enough to make me not feel like an anxious disaster.
I don't feel like any of my friends really get HOW MUCH going to the dentist terrifies me, both from an emotional and financial standpoint. And I know everyone talks about how it's never too late, but I feel like even though I've spent the last several years trying to take good care of my teeth because I didn't have insurance, it still wasn't enough and now it's too late for anything to matter.
