Duh-Duh-Duh! The Dentist!
Jul. 3rd, 2009 07:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
windinthemaplesI've had a medical phobia as long as I can remember. I don't like the out-of-control feeling I get in medical situations where I'm at someone's mercy, waiting to hear a diagnosis, not part of the consultation on the treatment. It seems to me that going to the doctor, the dentist, the hospital, the chiropractor is like stepping onto this scary ride where anything could suddenly happen. I attribute this non-specific anxiety to my childhood where my mom battled breast cancer and everything that could go wrong seemed to happen with medical professionals around. Obviously, it isn't logical but I can't control how my pulse races and my breathing speeds up and how I feel anxiety even going to visit someone else in the hospital--as if someone might reach out and grab me against my will. It is just something I cope with as best I can.
My teeth have been pretty good. I had braces, though, and my mother had a dispute with my orthodontist at the end of my treatment. I was left with one of those bottom retainers cemented onto my bottom molars for a few years. I knew I had to get rid of it but we couldn't go back to the orthodontist, so I rather painstakingly rocked the brackets off my teeth with a spoon over a period of weeks and weeks in front of a mirror.
The next time I went to the dentist, they found cavities in those molars that'd gone unnoticed under the metal bands. No problem, he fixed me up and away I went.
A few years later, one of those molars had more issues of decay under the filling, so a different dentist that I was going to at the time had to redrill and refill. No problem! I kinda thought cavity fillings were fun procedures. Bring it on!
Except the drilling had to be super close to the nerves and I am resistant to novocaine, it hardly works on me, so by the end I felt like I was being electrocuted! My spine bowed up off the chair, I was practically levitating, and the dentist didn't really respond to me telling him how much it hurt. Pain, hot/cold, I felt like one of those experiment dogs that was having its brain directly stimulated by a hot wire. Oh, my God!
At least two dental assistant/hygienists laid their bodies across mine to hold me down while the dentist kept muttering to me, "We're almost done. We're almost done. We're almost done."
It was actual torture.
So in that instant my ever-present medical anxiety bloomed into total FEAR OF THE DENTIST!!!
I lost my dental insurance shortly after that, became too poor for good teeth, and managed to spend about four years away from the dentist until I moved to Florida and got married to a man with coverage. :) The return visit to a new dentist went pretty well. I got some whitening done, she hounded me to floss more, and away I went. Easy peasy. As a cosmetic dentist, she wanted to change out the few silver mercury fillings I had to something that'd blend in with my teeth better. We did and it was kinda a fun procedure, despite how my heart pounded.
I was back in the world of regular dental care. My teeth were sparkly. :D
The next visit, I don't know what happened. The dentist was cruel or insensitive.
Goodbye, nose! I'm spiting my face!
The anger and terror and shame of that visit produced probably the exact opposite of her intended effect. Because of it, once I'd had my wisdom teeth removed later that spring, I dropped off the dentist office radar, cancelled my next appointment, and haven't been back in over three years.
That's criminal. Am I wanting all my teeth to fall out for lack of simple care?
So, last night, after talking with Shaun about needing to go back and having him say I should, in no uncertain terms, I decided to check out sedation dentistry. Basically, it is dentistry geared towards phobic, embarrassed, or difficult-to-numb patients where you get drugged in some way into a relaxed state so they can do the dental work and hopefully not add to your scary stock of dentist experiences. It seems kind of extreme, I don't need to be drugged, but I thought at least at one of these dentists I'd find people who'd be kind to me and forgive me for the years I've spent away from a dentist's chair. I just needed a little sensitivity, less criticism, and some understanding of what phobic patients feel.
One guy's website felt welcoming. It wasn't a beauty contest, it was about getting people who are scared and who've put it off back to the dentist. There was a number for making appointments and I thought I'd call it. (I expected a recording that'd tell me what their office hours were during the holiday weekend--so I'd know when to call back.)
The dentist answered the phone!
At 8:30pm!
I was mortified. He was so kind, though. He had his office phone transfered at night to his cell phone so he could always be there whenever someone got up the nerve to call. I told him how long it'd been and perhaps over-exaggerated how bad my situation was, and he was very sweet. "I don't mean to minimize what you've been through", he said warmly, "but we get patients who've been 25 years without a dentist. We'll fix you up, don't worry! Just enjoy your holiday weekend and afterwards we'll take care of everything."
He put his wife on the phone to flip through his appointment calendar.
I go in for a consultation--not a cleaning or anything if I don't want it--just a meeting and a making-of-the-game-plan on Tuesday.
I feel this huge sense of relief. I know I found the right people to help me. I'm also in a mild state of panic. I think it'll be okay, though. Nothing to it but to do it and I did!
I apologized to the wife for calling so late. I'd thought for sure to get an answering machine! I told her how grateful I was for her, how scared I was, how embarrassed I was at my teeth and how long it'd been, and she gently pish-poshed my worries away.
"We can work miracles. Four years is nothing! You come in on Tuesday and we'll sit down and figure out how to get you all fixed up."
I was flossing my teeth last night and I thought, in the light of my upcoming dentist appointment, that they weren't as bad as I'd thought. A few aches and sensitive spots to investigate but really, I'm not so far gone as all that. I'm not a monster, not a bad person, just a phobic patient who finally found the right mix of "can do" and compassion in a dentist.
That doesn't mean that my heart's not going to be pitter-pattering along between now and my appointment, but I have this relieving sense that it'll be okay and that things will only get better now that I'm going back.
My teeth have been pretty good. I had braces, though, and my mother had a dispute with my orthodontist at the end of my treatment. I was left with one of those bottom retainers cemented onto my bottom molars for a few years. I knew I had to get rid of it but we couldn't go back to the orthodontist, so I rather painstakingly rocked the brackets off my teeth with a spoon over a period of weeks and weeks in front of a mirror.
The next time I went to the dentist, they found cavities in those molars that'd gone unnoticed under the metal bands. No problem, he fixed me up and away I went.
A few years later, one of those molars had more issues of decay under the filling, so a different dentist that I was going to at the time had to redrill and refill. No problem! I kinda thought cavity fillings were fun procedures. Bring it on!
Except the drilling had to be super close to the nerves and I am resistant to novocaine, it hardly works on me, so by the end I felt like I was being electrocuted! My spine bowed up off the chair, I was practically levitating, and the dentist didn't really respond to me telling him how much it hurt. Pain, hot/cold, I felt like one of those experiment dogs that was having its brain directly stimulated by a hot wire. Oh, my God!
At least two dental assistant/hygienists laid their bodies across mine to hold me down while the dentist kept muttering to me, "We're almost done. We're almost done. We're almost done."
It was actual torture.
So in that instant my ever-present medical anxiety bloomed into total FEAR OF THE DENTIST!!!
I lost my dental insurance shortly after that, became too poor for good teeth, and managed to spend about four years away from the dentist until I moved to Florida and got married to a man with coverage. :) The return visit to a new dentist went pretty well. I got some whitening done, she hounded me to floss more, and away I went. Easy peasy. As a cosmetic dentist, she wanted to change out the few silver mercury fillings I had to something that'd blend in with my teeth better. We did and it was kinda a fun procedure, despite how my heart pounded.
I was back in the world of regular dental care. My teeth were sparkly. :D
The next visit, I don't know what happened. The dentist was cruel or insensitive.
Goodbye, nose! I'm spiting my face!
The anger and terror and shame of that visit produced probably the exact opposite of her intended effect. Because of it, once I'd had my wisdom teeth removed later that spring, I dropped off the dentist office radar, cancelled my next appointment, and haven't been back in over three years.
That's criminal. Am I wanting all my teeth to fall out for lack of simple care?
So, last night, after talking with Shaun about needing to go back and having him say I should, in no uncertain terms, I decided to check out sedation dentistry. Basically, it is dentistry geared towards phobic, embarrassed, or difficult-to-numb patients where you get drugged in some way into a relaxed state so they can do the dental work and hopefully not add to your scary stock of dentist experiences. It seems kind of extreme, I don't need to be drugged, but I thought at least at one of these dentists I'd find people who'd be kind to me and forgive me for the years I've spent away from a dentist's chair. I just needed a little sensitivity, less criticism, and some understanding of what phobic patients feel.
One guy's website felt welcoming. It wasn't a beauty contest, it was about getting people who are scared and who've put it off back to the dentist. There was a number for making appointments and I thought I'd call it. (I expected a recording that'd tell me what their office hours were during the holiday weekend--so I'd know when to call back.)
The dentist answered the phone!
At 8:30pm!
I was mortified. He was so kind, though. He had his office phone transfered at night to his cell phone so he could always be there whenever someone got up the nerve to call. I told him how long it'd been and perhaps over-exaggerated how bad my situation was, and he was very sweet. "I don't mean to minimize what you've been through", he said warmly, "but we get patients who've been 25 years without a dentist. We'll fix you up, don't worry! Just enjoy your holiday weekend and afterwards we'll take care of everything."
He put his wife on the phone to flip through his appointment calendar.
I go in for a consultation--not a cleaning or anything if I don't want it--just a meeting and a making-of-the-game-plan on Tuesday.
I feel this huge sense of relief. I know I found the right people to help me. I'm also in a mild state of panic. I think it'll be okay, though. Nothing to it but to do it and I did!
I apologized to the wife for calling so late. I'd thought for sure to get an answering machine! I told her how grateful I was for her, how scared I was, how embarrassed I was at my teeth and how long it'd been, and she gently pish-poshed my worries away.
"We can work miracles. Four years is nothing! You come in on Tuesday and we'll sit down and figure out how to get you all fixed up."
I was flossing my teeth last night and I thought, in the light of my upcoming dentist appointment, that they weren't as bad as I'd thought. A few aches and sensitive spots to investigate but really, I'm not so far gone as all that. I'm not a monster, not a bad person, just a phobic patient who finally found the right mix of "can do" and compassion in a dentist.
That doesn't mean that my heart's not going to be pitter-pattering along between now and my appointment, but I have this relieving sense that it'll be okay and that things will only get better now that I'm going back.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-03 02:08 pm (UTC)I hope the dentist is good though :)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-03 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-03 03:35 pm (UTC)I actually don't even know how long it has been since I was at the dentist, though it has been within the past few years because I had to go to get the referral for the surgery to get the blood clot from my tongue (a whole nother freaky situation)
I have looked into sedation dentistry and now it is all about saving the money up because our insurance will only cover the basic necessities, like Novocaine, which like you, doesn't do anything for me.
Fingers crossed and positive thoughts go out to you for your visit Tuesday. Let the rest of us phobics now how it goes :)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-05 12:38 pm (UTC)I think ex-smokers should help smokers to stop, so there you go. That's just me. :D
no subject
Date: 2009-07-05 12:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-05 12:46 pm (UTC)We're putting it on our credit card and have kinda planned that if it's crazy-spensive we'll get the work I need done and then worry about moving back to a regular dentist if I have a good experience and can get over some of that fear. :/ But yeah, I'm worried about the cost.