I feel like I'm losing my mind over my teeth!

[Littlemissworry93]

Hi everyone,
So I did post a few days ago about a worry I had over my teeth. However now I'm feeling so much worse, on Sunday my front tooth had a funny sensation to it and it almost felt slightly loose when I touched it but there was no visible looseness when I looked in the mirror.
Since then it's gotten much worse and it feels loose when I press my tongue against it! It got so bad yesterday I actually went to an emergency dentist and she said all my teeth were fine and none were loose at all the only thing wrong is a slight bit of gingitivis and my gums are bleeding a bit.
I felt so relieved for a while and then my anxiety came creeping back.
I am just so convinced my front teeth are going to come out. Everything looks fine but it feels so strange in my mouth.
My teeth look absolutely fine but can't shake this loose teeth sensation.
It feels fine when I wake up in the morning but gradually gets worse as the day goes on, it feels like my teeth are so swollen, I know it's my gums but I've never heard of gingitivis causing this before. When I talk as well it feels like my teeth are hanging by a thread but they're not they're firmly in place! I feel like I've lost my mind.
All I want to do is stay in bed all day and need to take sleeping tablets to sleep at night now otherwise I toss and turn and wake up in a sweat.
Please help me I feel so lonely and scared and don't know who to turn to. I keep telling myself the dentist says my teeth are fine but it doesn't work for long. I can't stop checking my teeth in the mirror to see if any are loose, I'm at wits end now. :(
Thanks everyone.

[Trueman]

I really understand where you are. It's not a great place - constantly checking. Constantly thinking about it. But you have to stop yourself. Stop and count to 30. Distract. And keep repeating the cycle until you forget that you are distracting yourself!

Your dentist (who is absolutely the best person to decide) said your teeth are fine. There is no other specialist better suited to tell you that! So. Deep breaths and make steps to move forward. Away from the worrying and checking.

[Littlemissworry93]

Thank you for the response. It's such an awful place to be since I haven't had Health Anxiety for nearly 2 years so I'm just gutted it's come back to this extreme again. I know deep down it's more of a psychological thing with my teeth but HA keeps trying to tell me what if the dentist missed something I know realistically she would have to tell me if my teeth were loose, but my front teeth just feel SO loose like they're just going to drop out. I'm genuinely frightened I won't feel any better and that I'm going crazy as my symptoms feel so real. :(

[Trueman]

That's the thing with HA it does feel real and often it is real because the anxiety caused it. But with the teeth I'm sure any evidence at all that they were going to fall out would have been picked up on by your dentist. The gingivitis could be making them feel weird.

[MyNameIsTerry]

For me, a dentist is less likeley to miss something than a GP. A dentist is a specialist and they have equipment a GP doesn't have access to such as onsite X-ray equipment so they can make a very thorough diagnosis.

From personal experience of asking about my sleep grinding I found my dentist far more knowledgeable and his advice was by far superior to my GP's.

Think of it this way, if you teeth could move as you thought, wouldn't him/her examining them with their tools cause them to move very easily and they would immmediately see a problem?

Sometimes you can eat certain types of foods that make your gums feel weird and your teeth.

I know I've felt one of my teeth was loose before so I checked it in the mirror and whilst it felt to my fingers & mouth that is was, I could clearly see it wasn't moving. So, I just put it down to nothing really.

I'm not advocating a mirror check whenever this thought occurs though. Once is enough, anything after that is a compulsion/ritual. The more you give into obsession and perform rituals (yours being more about reassurance) the more you keep the cycle going because you are validating this thought to your subconscious. It will look for strong emotional reaction too and take it as a sign that it has done the right thing by sending you these thoughts & sensations. Don't go to the mirror on one occasion (distract yourself with something if you need to for this one off test) and then the next time go to the mirror. Record the difference in how you feel & why each time. At this point you know that nothing good or bad happens within this cycle, its simply that nothing happens. Then start looking at what you recorded to see what the thought patterns are so you know what was happening and use CBT tools to restructure your thinking and to reduce the mirror checks until they are gone completely. This way you have performed a Behavioural Experiement.

[feelthelove]

Mine were like that last year and i went to the dentist who said it is a bit of gum disease and the dentist cleaned my teeth my gums bled like crazy but once i started to clean them and get right under the gum the gum disease has got better no more bleeding and no more feeling like the teeth are coming loose. I think it is the swelling of the gums that make it feel like the tooth is going to come out and it feels strange i agree

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi Paul,

I can also admit to the tongue feeling too large and another one I had was manually closing my jaw shut a lot which I think was related to my grinding issue as it caused an inability to fully clamp it shut until it improved.

You learn something everyday, I didn't know about the dream thing!

[Littlemissworry93]

Wow thank you so much for your lovely replies.
I feel a lot better today and my gums don't feel as swollen. I haven't been checking my teeth every two seconds either which I think has probably made them feel a bit better. I guess everyone has a bit of movement in their teeth but some (like me lol) are just hyper aware of it. I've been using corosdyl mouthwash and I'm not too sure if I would notice a difference yet but I definitely feel a lot better. I've also been quite busy in work so haven't had much time to think about it which is good.