UK - How to brush aside your fear of the dentist
How to brush aside your fear of the dentist
May 3 2010 Melanie Harvey
NOBODY likes going to the dentist, well no one I've met anyway. The smell, the noise, the crowded waiting room with fear lingering in the clammy air.
Just thinking about it makes me feel slightly queasy.
But, while some people merely dislike the experience of someone prodding around in their mouth, there are people like me for whom it has got so bad they have invented names for it. Dental phobia, odontophobia, dental anxiety, or my personal favourite -dentophobia.
So there you have it. I am a dentophobe.
I'm not sure exactly when this irrational fear started. It might have been the two years of fluoride treatment I endured as a youngster.
This involved going to the dentist and having moulds filled with sickly goo fitted to my top and bottom teeth.
I can still taste it. The smirking dentist offered me flavours. Flavours? It all tasted the same and it wasn't pleasant.
Did it do me any good? Sorry, Mum, but no. I have a mouth full of fillings, sensitive teeth and even missing enamel.
So then came my teens and the endless fillings. At this point, I was too young to refuse the six-monthly visits to the horrible little surgery in town.
Then the wisdom teeth traumas started. Aged 18, a new arrival in Glasgow and with a university assignment to finish, I was in agony.
The first wisdom tooth came out without too much drama.
The next three were a different matter. Each experience worse than the last. One snapped mid- extraction. Yes, snapped. With the last one, I opted for hospital and a general anaesthetic.................
May 3 2010 Melanie Harvey
NOBODY likes going to the dentist, well no one I've met anyway. The smell, the noise, the crowded waiting room with fear lingering in the clammy air.
Just thinking about it makes me feel slightly queasy.
But, while some people merely dislike the experience of someone prodding around in their mouth, there are people like me for whom it has got so bad they have invented names for it. Dental phobia, odontophobia, dental anxiety, or my personal favourite -dentophobia.
So there you have it. I am a dentophobe.
I'm not sure exactly when this irrational fear started. It might have been the two years of fluoride treatment I endured as a youngster.
This involved going to the dentist and having moulds filled with sickly goo fitted to my top and bottom teeth.
I can still taste it. The smirking dentist offered me flavours. Flavours? It all tasted the same and it wasn't pleasant.
Did it do me any good? Sorry, Mum, but no. I have a mouth full of fillings, sensitive teeth and even missing enamel.
So then came my teens and the endless fillings. At this point, I was too young to refuse the six-monthly visits to the horrible little surgery in town.
Then the wisdom teeth traumas started. Aged 18, a new arrival in Glasgow and with a university assignment to finish, I was in agony.
The first wisdom tooth came out without too much drama.
The next three were a different matter. Each experience worse than the last. One snapped mid- extraction. Yes, snapped. With the last one, I opted for hospital and a general anaesthetic.................
posted by Bill at
9:37 AM
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