Our family did not have doctor or dental treatment growing up, after my dad went to Prison, and was discharged from the Air Force when I was about 5-6, do remember getting hurt due to abuse issue, and fainting when I was anorexic as a teen, but was never treated, always just taken to the bedroom and left I guess mostly.
Started getting medical/dental treatment after I married, first dental appt was when I was 21, remember dentist telling me after the exam I was going to put his kids thru college. Medical exams are always a very stressful encounter for me, but dental exams are the absolute worst..from the moment they walk in and ask you to open your mouth, I feel dazed and confused, hyperalert yet floaty, muscle burns everywhere, especially in the upper body, then numbness, and shakes.
So now..hmmmm..sorry…going to sound stupid..but takes an act of congress to get me to keep a dental appt usually end up canceling the first year, over and over and over again, kinda the same way with Gyn appts…
Several years ago, I went to a Military Dental Clinic in the Hospital I worked in, and the treating Dentist was a retired Admiral they had called into service to the clinic that week because they were short personnel due to deployment issues..well…he was ill..had what I can only assume was a psychotic break of some kind during my exam..I had a tooth that was hurting, and had made an appt at the clinic, and I got the luck of the draw with this wounded professional.
From the time I sat in the chair, I could tell he was not in a good place, he acted very mad, throwing his instruments on the tray next to me, when he started the exam, my gums would not stop bleeding around the tooth he was looking at…and he started to yell and cuss at me..the dental tech..was a young airman..started backing up against the wall then as I watched helplessly, the tech slid out of the room, all the time with his back to the wall..and I could only sit in the chair as this man went into what I can only describe as a PTSD event..I thought the tech would come back with someone to stop this man from hurting me…but no one came..at least not while I was there..the whole event maybe lasted 20 minutes..with the dentist throwing sharp instruments onto my chest, made some cuts where they hit me, some went crashing to the floor, my lip was numb where he jammed a needle of novacaine thru my lower lip instead of inside my mouth because his hands were shaking..finally..finally..he stopped..leaned backed off of me..and told me he couldn’t help me..told me to leave..but before he took the instruments out of my mouth…all the stuff he had cleaned out of the infected tooth…he said “here before you go you can have this back”…he jammed all the debris back into the infected tooth with the instruments he had been throwing around..yes all the plaque and infected tissue he had removed and stuck on a piece of napkin on the tray..he slowly picked up with the dental tool, and stuck it right back into the gum and tooth area..then told me to get out……….arrghhhh…..I ran out of the clinic…never went back…didn’t talk to anyone..didnt know what to say…upset the damn dental tech didn’t come to help me with this obviously psychotic dentist..I really believe it was the blood that set this off, because he became so out of control when he couldnt get my gums to stop bleeding...
Anyway…I did not go to a dentist again for about 3 months afterwards. only went because the tooth that was infected was hurting 10 times worse…the infection had spread into my jaw and had now eaten away part of the underlying bone, that is what the dental surgeon told me after he did x-rays…I was now having fevers, and was becoming very ill..I explained to the surgeon what happened after he asked why I had let it get this bad, and he did not know how I could have put up with all the pain that this infection had caused..well fear will make you do allot of strange stuff that you know in your right mind you wouldn’t do..I ended up requiring a bone graft to my jaw to assist with the repair where the infection had eaten away bone…
Where am I going with this…well I broke a tooth last Feb..I went to see a dentist, he put a sedative temp filling in, told me to come back in 6 weeks to get it repaired…took all I could just to sit thru that appt..well I never went back..still have the badly cracked tooth, the temp filling fell out a long time ago, and the tooth has been hurting on and off. I make the appt…cancel it..make the appt..cancel it…make the appt…cancel it…my fear is so bad I have been looking on the Internet to see how maybe I can pull it myself…know at this point that I am not thinking rationally about this…but my fear is just soooo bad…
I have visited dentists in the past and had teeth pulled (2), I will not allow them to work on them, I tell them to pull them, that’s it…end of discussion..everytime these encounters are about as stressful as if I am being tortured…and it takes me a year or two of suffering before I go in...
Last night it was hurting so bad..I started to think about getting a knife and cutting it out myself..I am sorry I know this is bad..its stupid..its not logical..to be so scared of something that you are willing to…I have canceled two appts with the dentist within the last 3 weeks..have another one scheduled on Oct 10th....I just need to make it to the appt..once I am there I can endure it…tell him to pull it…but…its just making it into the office at this point…sorry for such a long post…I am going to the store shortly to grab something for the pain..and maybe some antibacterial mouthwash...this is soooo dumb...I know better...why cant I get over this fear...
Eva