First of all, I want to share my story with those who are still afraid to go to the dentist to have their teeth treated. There are many such people, even men in adulthood will find a thousand reasons not to go to dentistry. Learn to endure pain for years and try to relieve pain with a ton of ibuprofen tablets and rinse your mouth with baking soda diluted in boiled water every 10 minutes.
My dear readers! Now is not the time to be afraid to go to the dentist.
Since childhood, I was terrified of dentists, because of this fear I lost two teeth in due time. Then I almost lost two more teeth, but I pulled myself together, the pain won out over fear, I decided to sign up for a dental clinic. And it changed my life.
I want to tell you in more detail the reasons for the appearance of fears, as well as the reasons why not only the fear went away, but also the love of dentistry appeared. Perhaps someone in this article will recognize himself, or maybe my example will help someone to stop being afraid, because the condition of the teeth may not lead to the best consequences.
Why I was afraid of dentists more than anything else
As a child, when my tooth roots were being treated, the doctor took out a nerve, showed it to me and said that these were worms from my tooth. At that time, such medical jokes seemed frightening to me.
At a more conscious age, it all happened when I suffered terrible pain from a tooth that fell apart. I went to the regional dental clinic to treat a tooth for free under the compulsory medical insurance policy. Then they gave me some very weak injection and began to pull out a tooth even before the pain reliever took effect.
I felt absolutely everything: a woman dentist tried to pull out a tooth, but she did not have enough strength, her assistant was holding my head. They yelled at me, it was, damn it, it hurt like hell, you are pulling my teeth out almost to the living, it is impossible not to howl and twitch. At that time, I had an opinion in my head about dental treatment as torture in the Gestapo.
But the most interesting thing happened a month later, when my swelling completely disappeared. It turned out that my tooth was not completely pulled out, part of it remained in the gum! Although she saw the picture and saw the part that she ripped out.
It is clear that it was not long before I decided to re-visit that torture room in order to remove the remaining fragment. And again dragged on until the last (Endured for 6 years) until he got sick right on my birthday.
That time I signed up for a paid clinic. My legs were wadded with fear, only terrible pain prevented me from escaping. But surprisingly, everything went just fine: I came across a very sensitive girl-doctor, who allowed if why cry and told me not to be ashamed of my fear, because even adults are roaring in her chair men. And you know what? For some reason her words helped, I calmed down and everything went so quickly and painlessly that I did not even have time to recover.
Do you think this is where the story ends? It was not there! A couple of years later, my love for sweets made itself felt, and two more teeth began to hurt. One of them is the front one, which gave impetus to the next trip to dentistry. At that time, I was perfectly aware of one reinforced concrete fact: even though you are there with clean skin as ideal as a baby's ass, even though you are thin with flecks and a pronounced nasolab, full or thin, bald or hairy from heels to crown - beautiful teeth will overshadow any aesthetic flaws, and ugly teeth take into the background everything that is beautiful in you when your mouth is on castle.
Where did the love for dental treatment at the dentist come from?
My old dream was straight teeth and braces, which, naturally, no one would put on sick teeth. I pulled myself together and went to a consultation with an orthodontist and a therapist.
When I came for a consultation with a therapist, he instantly endeared himself, and even for a couple of moments I stopped being afraid (probably because I knew that on this day nothing would heal me).
On the day of the appointment, I was terribly afraid, I was shaking, my stomach hurt. While I was driving in a taxi, I wanted to ask the driver several times to drop me off and no matter where, just not at the dentistry. Somehow she overcame her fear and walked with her palms sweaty from worries on barely moving legs.
And so... dentist's office. She sat down in a chair. The site of the future injection was treated with a freezing gel to make the injection less painful. They waited out the time and injected themselves. I honestly admit: I was afraid of the injection no less than the treatment itself, but I did not feel it at all. We are biding our time again, I have already perked up a little, but the memories of that reception, when the anesthesia did not come, did not leave me.
They began to treat my long-suffering front tooth. And I didn't feel anything, absolutely! The maximum discomfort I had was my hands numb from sitting in one position. All! Further in the process of treating this tooth, I felt sorry not for myself, but for my doctor: due to the wrong bite and the position of this tooth, it was problematic to get to the roots, but he coped.
For two months I went to appointments once or twice a week during my lunch break. I came to work happy and enthusiastic, some colleagues even doubted that I was in dentistry :-)
I was lucky to find a wonderful, sensitive and attentive dentist. It was thanks to him that I fell in love with dental treatment. And sometimes I want to go to have my teeth treated, but now there is nothing to treat, at the moment all my teeth are healthy. Receptions at the orthodontist save me, but even then during the pandemic I had a "withdrawal" without going to dentistry.
The great thing is that such dentists are now not uncommon, there are a lot of good specialists who love their work. Technologies have advanced a lot, now the canals are treated under a microscope. All you need to do is just lie on the chair and enjoy.
When my mother-in-law had a toothache, I undoubtedly advised my dentist. No matter how my husband and I tried to persuade her to go to the clinic, right up to a scandal. But we went, and she came out after him happy! Although she had a wisdom tooth and a cyst removed, and she went to the clinic without much enthusiasm :-)
It remains to persuade the father-in-law, here everything is more difficult of course. By the way, I can give the residents of Kaliningrad the contacts of my dentist, especially since he is a specialist in the field of prosthetics, especially aesthetic prosthetics, surgery, including implantation.
Now, with the passage of time, I realize how stupid I was. I endured terrible pain, stuffed myself with pills that do not have the best effect on the body. One could not endure pain at all, no pain at all. And calmly heal your teeth. Because of my fear, I gave a lot more money, but if I treated it on time, I could save a lot. And to this day, in orthodontic treatment, my fear reverberates, which is why I again overpay with both time and money.
If then I had not pulled out that ill-fated tooth, but treated it not in free dentistry, I would have saved at least 40,000 rubles. I wrote about this in my article Towards a Perfect Smile (Part 1): How I Prepared for Braces
The premise of my article is not that a paid clinic is better than a polyclinic, where teeth are treated for free under a policy. Perhaps there are good dentists in polyclinics. My message is that new equipment and a doctor can completely change your attitude to dental treatment, and turn fear into pleasure. It is advisable to look for a young specialist: they are ambitious, they are constantly taking advanced training courses, and have not yet faced professional burnout, which is very important!
Tell us in the comments if you are afraid to have your teeth treated or not? If you're afraid, why? Share your stories (of good and bad hikes).
