madd
22-02-13, 03:18
Hey OCD and anxiety sufferer here. I have a long story. I'll sum it up at the end since most people won't want to read this.
I have a bad history with the dentist. My parents never taught me how to brush my teeth as a little kid and they refused to take me to the dentist unless I needed a tooth pulled, which happened twice- the first time was a severely infected baby molar and the second was an adult molar (#3) that chipped when I was only 11 years old (they didn't do anything about it until I was 17 or 18- and elected to have it pulled instead of RC'd).
During my teens I got a mouth full of amalgam and some composite fillings. I was really clueless during this time, these were my first times to the dentist besides when I had my infected child tooth pulled. I implicitly trusted whatever the dentist did, or rather obliviously. Then one day, one dentist had to drill a hole in the side of molar number 19 to put in a filling. Well, he didn't. He drilled the hole and either put no filling, or the filling fell out.
I went home and brushed my teeth and got the worst kind of pain. I looked in the mirror and was shocked to see this perfectly smooth, drilled hole in the molar. We immediately called the dentist and he denied everything, but told me to come back in the next day.
I did, and he refilled the tooth, free of charge (but still denied everything).
Eventually, bit by bit, the filling fell out again. I didn't realize this as food or spit would impact the tooth and make the side of the tooth smooth most of the time. It sounds silly, but it was easy to miss as my tongue rarely went there and it looked the same in the mirror. Basically, long story short is that the filling fell out completely and decay got under the tooth.
I finally went back to the dentist recently, a dental clinic. I'm in my 20s now, but currently unemployed and getting some help from my family. The dentist said I needed 5 of my fillings redone, 2 new fillings (one very tiny) and that horrible hole filled.
She filled the hole yesterday with amalgam. I asked her if composite would be better and she insisted amalgam lasts longer and that it was going to be a bigger filling.
Halfway through the drilling, she told me it was very deep and that it was very close to the pulp, and that she was going to fill it but that I'd eventually need a root canal. I've read tons of horror stories about root canals, that basically the tooth is eventually lost. I'm afraid this is going to happen to most of my teeth, as I have some large fillings on other molars.
I have VERY severe anxiety around this issue. I have had OCD since I was a kid and it got much much worse in my early 20s. This leads to anxiety issues which cause bouts of depression, and when the dentist told me this halfway through the drilling, it triggered the anxiety in the worst way.
When I got home I wanted to kill myself (again). I don't mean that figuratively, I was thinking of how I was going to go about killing myself. The last time I went through this was in September and it last about 10-12 days. I lose my appetite and can barely move my body. My body literally hurts from the tension. My vision is hazy. I barely have any money and even if I get a job and save up, the best a dentist can do is eventually kill all of my teeth and then eventually those will fail and I'll need dentures (since a mouth full of implants would be tens of thousands of dollars). I'm feeling a little better than yesterday, but I spent most of the day in bed and barely ate. My body still hurts a lot.
It just feels so hopeless. I was reading about laser treatment for healing pulp and pulp caps and how they can be done instead of root canals. So far I don't need a root canal and I have no major infections, and the only thing that calms my anxiety is the hope that I can eventually do procedures to rebuild dentin and hold on to my living teeth for an extra 10-15 years or more. I'm not even 30 and I'm picturing extreme pain and fake teeth in my near future.
I've been brushing and flossing and using fluoride for the past 4 years. I've been taking better care of my teeth. I wish I did when I was younger. But it feels like it's too late. The damage has been done...
SO here is the tl;dr version: I've suffered from OCD and a have incredibly low self esteem. I also have bad teeth and come from a poor family. Whenever I have to deal with my teeth, it triggers bouts of anxiety that are so intense that my body aches and I shut down and go into the worst bouts of depression. I suffer from depression in between this (although I can function during these non-anxiety filled depressions) and I have the lowest opinion of myself possible. I have no hope for the future either for my teeth or for me as a person. I wish I could just turn off all of my OCD and over thinking and "roll with the punches". I feel helpless.
I have a bad history with the dentist. My parents never taught me how to brush my teeth as a little kid and they refused to take me to the dentist unless I needed a tooth pulled, which happened twice- the first time was a severely infected baby molar and the second was an adult molar (#3) that chipped when I was only 11 years old (they didn't do anything about it until I was 17 or 18- and elected to have it pulled instead of RC'd).
During my teens I got a mouth full of amalgam and some composite fillings. I was really clueless during this time, these were my first times to the dentist besides when I had my infected child tooth pulled. I implicitly trusted whatever the dentist did, or rather obliviously. Then one day, one dentist had to drill a hole in the side of molar number 19 to put in a filling. Well, he didn't. He drilled the hole and either put no filling, or the filling fell out.
I went home and brushed my teeth and got the worst kind of pain. I looked in the mirror and was shocked to see this perfectly smooth, drilled hole in the molar. We immediately called the dentist and he denied everything, but told me to come back in the next day.
I did, and he refilled the tooth, free of charge (but still denied everything).
Eventually, bit by bit, the filling fell out again. I didn't realize this as food or spit would impact the tooth and make the side of the tooth smooth most of the time. It sounds silly, but it was easy to miss as my tongue rarely went there and it looked the same in the mirror. Basically, long story short is that the filling fell out completely and decay got under the tooth.
I finally went back to the dentist recently, a dental clinic. I'm in my 20s now, but currently unemployed and getting some help from my family. The dentist said I needed 5 of my fillings redone, 2 new fillings (one very tiny) and that horrible hole filled.
She filled the hole yesterday with amalgam. I asked her if composite would be better and she insisted amalgam lasts longer and that it was going to be a bigger filling.
Halfway through the drilling, she told me it was very deep and that it was very close to the pulp, and that she was going to fill it but that I'd eventually need a root canal. I've read tons of horror stories about root canals, that basically the tooth is eventually lost. I'm afraid this is going to happen to most of my teeth, as I have some large fillings on other molars.
I have VERY severe anxiety around this issue. I have had OCD since I was a kid and it got much much worse in my early 20s. This leads to anxiety issues which cause bouts of depression, and when the dentist told me this halfway through the drilling, it triggered the anxiety in the worst way.
When I got home I wanted to kill myself (again). I don't mean that figuratively, I was thinking of how I was going to go about killing myself. The last time I went through this was in September and it last about 10-12 days. I lose my appetite and can barely move my body. My body literally hurts from the tension. My vision is hazy. I barely have any money and even if I get a job and save up, the best a dentist can do is eventually kill all of my teeth and then eventually those will fail and I'll need dentures (since a mouth full of implants would be tens of thousands of dollars). I'm feeling a little better than yesterday, but I spent most of the day in bed and barely ate. My body still hurts a lot.
It just feels so hopeless. I was reading about laser treatment for healing pulp and pulp caps and how they can be done instead of root canals. So far I don't need a root canal and I have no major infections, and the only thing that calms my anxiety is the hope that I can eventually do procedures to rebuild dentin and hold on to my living teeth for an extra 10-15 years or more. I'm not even 30 and I'm picturing extreme pain and fake teeth in my near future.
I've been brushing and flossing and using fluoride for the past 4 years. I've been taking better care of my teeth. I wish I did when I was younger. But it feels like it's too late. The damage has been done...
SO here is the tl;dr version: I've suffered from OCD and a have incredibly low self esteem. I also have bad teeth and come from a poor family. Whenever I have to deal with my teeth, it triggers bouts of anxiety that are so intense that my body aches and I shut down and go into the worst bouts of depression. I suffer from depression in between this (although I can function during these non-anxiety filled depressions) and I have the lowest opinion of myself possible. I have no hope for the future either for my teeth or for me as a person. I wish I could just turn off all of my OCD and over thinking and "roll with the punches". I feel helpless.