Dental Phobia!

[paintboxgirl]

I HATE going to the dentist! I think I would rather drop a bowling ball on my own head rather than go and wouldn't you know it, I have lousy teeth. My dentist always gives me nitrous and knocks me out because he says that I'm strung up so tight that he can't work on me without it. I didn't used to have a dentist issue, but about 20 years ago I had a poorly done root canal and it's been a problem ever since.  

[Malheureux]

Lil-Jo

I'm not actually afraid of them, I am afraid of vomiting on them. I have a horrible gag reflex and have gagged with every trip to a dentist I have had and actually vomited on 2 visits.

You should work on that... I have a suggestion... mrgreen  

[Veddhartha]

I was afraid of dentists too, and still am a bit. As a kid and youngster I had to often go to dentist to fix cavities (family curse..) and quite often something hurt. I remember few times spitting surprisingly large amount of blood from my mouth afterwards.

Later on I had to take care of my wisdom tooth that become sore quickly. I went there and told the dentist, old and gray pop, that I have been terrified of them whole my life. The smell of waiting room, needles that cause more ache than drilling, not knowing what's happening and sudden pain inside the teeth..

I asked him to tell me what's going on and show the instrument before using it. I don't mind the pain itself, I'm known to be a masochist, but sudden, uncontrolled strike inside your mouth makes me unnerved. But that worked, it wasn't pleasant but being on the map what's going on did the trick. Dentist didn't rush me away either when ready, but gave the wisdom tooth to me and we chitchatted for a while (He recognized my dialect) what helped a lot for being nervous. That was first time I left smiling from dentist and chuckling for pulling the teeth out. (Thank God for painkillers)

Here in Finland dentists that work for city or state (lääni, province?) are free but lines long. At urgent cases like wisdom tooths, you get ahead the line. If you go to private dentist as I did you have to pay for it but its good.