• Dental Phobia Support

    Welcome! This is an online support group for anyone who is has a severe fear of the dentist or dental treatment. Please note that this is NOT a general dental problems or health anxiety forum! You can find a list of them here.

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Where I’m at so far...

O

OTR

Junior member
Joined
Mar 20, 2018
Messages
11
I’m coming off of my second visit to the dentist after avoiding them for the better part of 30 years, and things are looking up. Having suffered with dental anxiety and just plain anxiety in life, it was not easy to get this process started but I’m very happy I did. Even though some (most) parts of this have been stressful, actually going to the dentist has done a lot to cure my dental anxiety. Having been to the point of not being able to eat right and worrying about waking up with one less tooth, any embarrassment and discomfort in the chair has been a much better alternative to constantly living in fear.

Visit number one went much better than anticipated. I was seriously expecting the worst which didn’t happen (seems like it never does)...that being said I do have a long and expensive road ahead that will include multiple fillings, crowns/ cosmetic work, wisdom teeth extraction and a root canal I just found out about.

Appointment number two was yesterday morning and it consisted of a major cleaning / debridment. This was a miserable “marathon” of ultrasonic cleaning, scraping, tugging, ripping and just about every other sensation imaginable. It was about an hour of being upside down in a chair to complete this. It was a total mess. After leaving, I was bleeding and drooling and spitting the rest of the day and night. Even today I still had a few “crunches” of tartar breaking loose. Note to self, you need to brush more often and better. I don’t want to do that again!

In regards to the effectiveness of the cleaning, it’s only been about 36 hours and already the gums look less red and much less swollen. I thought it would take much longer to heal. Pretty amazing turnaround.

Hopefully next week some time I will go to get some fillings and my root canal done. I’m not excited but not dreading it either. I know it needs to be done and I am looking forward to having a healthy mouth again!
 
Congrats on the progress. I hope your next appointment goes well.
 
Root canal/ temp crown and one filling was done this morning. Took about an hour and a half. I was surprised at how little pain there was, like literally nothing. One of the tools he used vibrated a lot but that was the worst of it. Really, for how bad a lot of people make it sound...we’ve all heard the jokes about “I’d rather have a root canal”...it was nothing. Is it uncomfortable to sit with your mouth open for over an hour? Of course. But nothing I’ve experienced at the dentist yet has been nearly as bad as the pain that came from untreated cavities, decay, infections, etc.

The hygienist who did my deep cleaning also stopped in and was very happy with my progress. It just feels great.

Anybody who has had a bad experience years ago needs to find the courage to get back in the chair. Things have indeed changed and if you can find the right dentist, you’ll have no worries at all.

So far my past three visits have completely changed my outlook on going to the dentist. I’m actually excited for my next appointment. Going from being almost paralyzed with fear to this state of mind is amazing and I hope I can push others to make that call.

I get three more fillings and permanent crown in two weeks. This is where I will start to SEE a difference as the cavities are all somewhat visible. It’ll be great to have them solved.
 
Congrats and a huge well done! Going from being afraid to feeling excited in such a short time (it's been just about one month, right?) is quite a step :jump: Your story is inspiring, thank you for sharing! Look forward to your next updates!
 
Well, I’m nearing the end of this journey. On Tuesday I got my permanent crown put on, and had three more fillings done. I was thinking I’d have to wait a long time before I could get in to have #7,8,9 & 10 crowned. But luckily someone canceled their appointment and I was able to get in this morning to have the teeth shaped and a temporary crown put on.

This stage was the scariest by far, since two of the four teeth they “ground down” were actually in decent shape. But after a lot of consideration we decided it would look best to have all of them done and I had some money put away for this purpose.

The process took about 1.5 hours and I'm a little beat up after the fact so hopefully it’s worthwhile. I certainly had my doubts when I saw the temporary they put on. It’s all one piece covering my front most visible teeth. At first I really hated it, but now that my lip isn’t swollen anymore, I can speak fairly normally and it looks okay from a distance. Certainly better than my crooked, broken and chipped teeth that were there before. I guess I just have to get used to it and all my family and friends will have to get used to it as well.

May 17th I get the porcelain crowns on and I’ll be done. Very exciting. It’s not always been an easy 3 months but I think it’s worthwhile. Maybe I’ll have the courage to post before and after photos. My “before” photo is so ugly I deleted it off my phone but can retrieve it from the deleted folder as needed. :)
 
Wow.. thats alot of work!! Great news for you to get all that done and now waiting on the permanent crowns. I get how it is when the temp crowns don't look the best but it will be so worth it in the end when you see those permanant crowns ..!! So happy for you!!
 
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