Dental Phobia but getting worse, any advice????
Hi every one, i'm sorry the story below is so long, i thought it would be helpful for you to understand how this all began for me;
Shortly after leaving university i started getting minor panic attacks, nothing serious, just panicky before walking
into a pub or being afraid to sit and eat a meal in a restaurant etc.
Then i suffered a cold in March last year (2009) and it gave me a terrible toothache. I was in immense pain
and went to the dentist where he told me i needed a root canal to get rid of the problem. The pain wasn’t causing
me to panic, it was just distressing.
My dentist (who is a lovely man) started the root canal and after about an hour i started to panic because of the
taste, noise etc. I kept having to spit out the water because the smell of the infection/bone being ground down.
I was so panicked i couldn’t go on so he filled my tooth in with disinfectant to get rid of the
infection and put in a temporary filling.
Then maybe a month later i was in work and a tiny piece of the filling came out. I could taste the disinfectant
and because i could taste it and not get away i started to panic. This turned into a week off work of me
constantly panicking, i lost a stone because i didn’t want to eat and was constantly crying. The doctor put me
on anti-depressants, valium and beta blockers. Around the middle of this week i had my dentist fill in the part
of the filling that came out. He did, which got rid of the disinfectant taste but this didn’t stop me panicking.
I think in my mind i was aware that the disinfectant was still there and this made me panic in case the filling
came out again.
When i visited the dentist he put me onto the NHS to have the root finished whilst under sedation.
Typically for me my application was never put ‘through’ and i was still on edge.
so i went and had the root done under gas at a local private practice. This cost me a lot but i was just glad to get
It done and out of the way.
I had some strange thoughts for a long time after though. Such as being aware there was a ‘foreign’ element in
my tooth and what if another nerve died in my tooth and i started thinking the most ridiculous things.
I had hypnotherapy with a lady which seemed to cure me for two months after which i split up with my
boyfriend. This seemed to trigger a huge panic attack once again over me thinking about my teeth.
Since then i have been scared again and worrying. For example last night i started crying because i couldn’t stop
thinking about my teeth. This began to get ridiculous. I started thinking that my teeth were enemies,
and my mouth was full of bacteria (another dentist trip waiting to happen) i even started thinking what if i choke
on my tongue???
It’s getting so out of hand now. Sometimes i am too afraid to eat because i seem to have associated panic
attacks with my mouth/teeth. I panic if i even have a slight tooth ache. I know how ridiculous this is.
I have tried to counsel myself but i always seem to go back to square one once i suffer another panic attack.
I have suicidal thoughts because i can’t stand being on edge all the time.
Does any one else have dental phobia . . . but to the point where they panic about slight tooth ache or even have stupid thoughts about eating etc???
I just want to know whether i'm the only one. I don't know whether this is a more exaggerated phobia or whether people with dental phobia have also had the same thoughts as me . . not wanting fillings, worrying about eating, panicking about tooth ache etc etc.
I was thinking perhaps i should try some CBT. It suggests exposing yourself to your phobia. Do you think this will help? Please let me know how you came you came to have dental phobia or any phobia at all.
Many thanks
Faye (Dissolved Girl)
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