My dentist has a brother who has bipolar which makes him the ideal dentist for someone who is bipolar. I have to explain nothing. He even told me at the beginning if I can't tolerate the noise of the dental equipment to cancel without penalty the day of an appointment.

Along with bipolar I have PTSD and that led to a long time I didn't go to dentists because I gag easily and a dentist that made a big deal about it and embarrassed me made me just ignore those benefits for a while (and I didn't have dental for some time as well). His office is awesome, doing little things like scheduling me for the same people in the same room every single time. So everyone knows that I may start waving my arms and come shooting up and they are ready. This means I do get my 2 check-ups per year and fillings after every single visit.

My meds are so hard on my teeth. I do what I can for dry mouth; I chew baking soda gum, I constantly drink water, I suck on sugar free candy. I gave up orange juice and grapefruit juice completely. I use a home fluoride paste and am working very hard to do that daily (hard with the gag reflex being so high but I finally learned that not applying it with an electric toothbrush makes it about 1000x easier). I can't stand biotene products but have some prescription alternatives. I have a prescription product I forget the name of that I need to start using twice a day; I've been focusing on the fluoride first (if I don't do it at night I'm making myself do it the next day so it's getting done the same # of times per month if not every day although I'm improving).

To add to it I grind my teeth and have a very hard time wearing my bite guard. I tend to remove it and lose it and often just can't fall asleep with it. It also just increases the dry mouth. But this has cracked several teeth and I think he said I may have cracked another last time but then he said it might be a filling and didn't tell me which so I'm assuming filling since I didn't get a crown.

Every 6 months they find new cavities that require several surface fillings. This time around I'm going to have 5 surfaces filled on 2 teeth adjoining one another. Last check-up I had to get a front tooth filled. Last spring I fell down the stairs while carrying my laptop which flew up in the air and smacked me in the mouth, cracking a front tooth. Granted the tooth was weak from a weird orthodontic device I had worn but the front of it just came clean off and I didn't even notice for a few days.

I'm doing everything I'm told to do. I'm just curious if this is widespread or just me. I'm getting tired of needing fillings every 6 months and of the dentist expressing concern about the ongoing damage. He gets it and knows I can't avoid it but he's fighting to help me keep my teeth and I'm not quite 40 yet. It scares me.