First time at the dentist in 11 years

I win , I'm 47 havnt been to a dentist since I was 15.

Atari Jaguar wrote: »

This is a very Irish thing, "ah he's only codding trying to get money out of ye" never once a thought paid that perhaps they just want you to have healthy teeth and gums. Oh lord no it's all about trying to squeeze you for every penny.. frankly if I was a dentist and wanted to get your money I'd be telling you to come once a month not twice a year.

I know dentists and doctors personally. Quite a few actually. They are in it for the money. Most will tell you straight in social situations. They arent evil and will tell you how good it feels to help people, but there is a reason they charge 70 quid for GP visit and several hundred for a consultation. Some of the Dentists bills I've seen would make your head spin.

Think less Patch Adams and more Bob Kelso.

I have not been to a dentist in about 22 years. I have my first appointment with one at the end of this month here in Germany for a "Talk" first before I proceed any more.

And I am sure that there is so much plaque built up on my teeth that at this stage it is probably actually holding my teeth together rather than causing actual harm.

The problem for me is purely phobia. Total, complete, paralyzing, phobia. And intellectually I know this is stupid, but phobias are rarely an intellectual thing. Fully grown strong adults who can not bring themselves to walk within 1 meter of a tiny little spider will attest to that.

But two experiences do not help either.

The first was my first trip to a dentist at age 13 when he decided one tooth had to be pulled there and then. Before I knew it he was injecting my gum with anesthetic and I think he must have missed the mark because he appear to change direction while the needle was still in me. He just levered it around to the direction he wanted and pushed. It was excruciating in the pain it caused.

The second was when a completely different dentist also decided to pull a tooth. He just went for it. But the damn thing would not come. He literally had one foot up on the chair bracing himself he was pulling on it so hard. Despite the anesthetic it felt like my whole jaw was being ripped out of the socket and the pain of it permeated my entire skull. And in fact in the end the fecking tooth literally shattered leaving bits of tooth shooting up in the air, some of it back into my troath where I swallowed it, and half the tooth still remaining in my mouth with the roots completely intact. And his pliers thing went flying over my head at the same time nearly maiming his assistant. Who was also hot. Where DO they find these people.

So he referred me on to the dental hospital who did an xray and it turned out that A) I did not have an adult tooth under the tooth he was pulling so there was no erosion of the length of the tooth's root and one of the two roots was curved RIGHT around like a fish hook and not straight like roots should be so the tooth was really anchored in there and his pushing and pulling on my tooth to remove it was pretty much shredding my gums inside. So they put me under GENERAL anesthetic and performed a surgical removal.

So my phobia is compounded by these awful experiences, and the knowledge of the horror my dentist will likely express.... like in the OPs story..... at the poor condition of my mouth. But I keep trying to tell myself it will not be that bad, and sure of course dental technology is 20 years more advanced now than it was. But to say I am not looking forward to this appointment is..... about as large an understatement as I have made in my life.

jester77 wrote: »

that sounds very cheap.

I go twice a year here in Germany to get them professionally cleaned, €150 each time. Had a root canal before xmas, came to just under €500 and that was without a crown.

Ah I was hoping someone else in Germany would open the thread with some knowledge and experience. If you feel it is off topic to the thread please contact me in private and let me know all you know.

Myself I have a TKK Krankenkasse insurance AND also an AXA Premium-U Dental insurance. So I am not sure how that will work. I do not really know if I can use both together, or is it always one or the other, or how much TKK actually cover.

I know from work my girlfriend got that quite often some things are 100% covered if you take the cheaper option. But, say with things like crowns and fillings, there are materials you can OPT for (because they are more visually appealing, more realistic, or last longer before you need them redone or similar) that you pay for out of your own pocket that the Dental or health Insurance refuse to cover.

I also do not know how standards or technology is much different here than back home in Ireland. I am guessing there is differences because when my girlfriend had an x-ray her dentist was able to point at her fillings and say things like "Ah yes, this one you got in Ireland, this one you clearly got in the UK........." and was able to accurately identify where each piece of work she ever had done was performed.

I also do not know how they deal with "angst patienten" in general, let alone one as extreme as me. I am hoping to be able to identify a dentist who will be able to use GENERAL anesthetic options by request, rather than simply only using them in specifically surgical contexts where local ones are merely deemed not to suffice.

Bambi985 wrote: »

I do, love it in fact. love the sensation of freshly scaled and polished teeth and I always get compliments on how clean they are when I go in coz I'm fairly obsessive about the aul brushing and flossing.

Teeth are important folks, stop putting off the appointments and telling yourselves yiz are grand! there's nothing worse than poor dental hygiene or neglected teeth, they leave a lasting impression on people you meet and will cause major problems for you down the line.

That's funny because my own dentist comments that my teeth are clean when I go in too. A lot less frequently than every six months.

Going for a polish is ok, but if you have to have something worse done, like the extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth, I'm sure it is understandably much more stressful.

Glad I'm not the only one. I'm 35 and haven't been since I was 17. Even then, that was an orthodontist. I haven't seen a dentist since I was 14. Noticed some plaque buildup there a few months ago. Shifted right off with a week or two of focussed brushing.

I should probably go to the dentist, but I have no issues with my teeth. I don't go to the doctor when I feel fine.

jester77 wrote: »

he anaesthetic I got here was a little prick on both sides of the tooth and that was it, that prick was the only thing I felt for the whole procedure and my jaw, mouth and face were perfectly fine afterwards.

I remember the "little prick on both sides" things too from my last times in a dentist. But they were generally to cause numbing for the "main prick" that they inserted deep into the jaw line to numb the entire half of the mouth/face.

It was the main "prick" that was excruciating ever time. It felt like the needle was being forced through bone! It was insane.

Then the procedures themselves, even the drilling for before a filling, I could "feel". But I find it impossible to describe what I was feeling. It was not "pain" as such. More like this feeling of nausea all over, coupled with a feeling like going backward and forwards between "normal" and feeling like fainting.

The only way I can describe it was the feeling my brain WAS being flooded with all kinds of signals, just not full on pain signals, and it simply did not know how to process what it was receiving so it just suffered this overall feeling of intense distress and generally sending out animal level extreme feelings of "I have GOT to get out of here" similar to panic attacks I guess.

None of it was good anyway suffice to say. In general people in my family genetically seem to have both a very low pain threshold and a very high anesthetic immunity. Neither of which is a good thing, but together is even worse.

My mother even recalls having her tonsils out under general anesthetic, and being paralyzed for the whole procedure unable to communicate to the doctors that she was actually awake and aware of the full pain of the full procedure. Crazy stuff She was even later able to embarrass the doctor by relating back to him much of the conversation he was having while working on her.

Anyway my appointment is "conversation only" I think so first step for me is to overcome my phobia in just getting myself over the threshold that first time. One step at a time. I am bad enough and phobic enough that if I can not find someone offering "sleep" possibilities to get me through, I might consider one of those many "Dental holiday packages" to countries that do.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I remember the "little prick on both sides" things too from my last times in a dentist. But they were generally to cause numbing for the "main prick" that they inserted deep into the jaw line to numb the entire half of the mouth/face.

It was the main "prick" that was excruciating ever time. It felt like the needle was being forced through bone! It was insane.

Then the procedures themselves, even the drilling for before a filling, I could "feel". But I find it impossible to describe what I was feeling. It was not "pain" as such. More like this feeling of nausea all over, coupled with a feeling like going backward and forwards between "normal" and feeling like fainting.

The only way I can describe it was the feeling my brain WAS being flooded with all kinds of signals, just not full on pain signals, and it simply did not know how to process what it was receiving so it just suffered this overall feeling of intense distress and generally sending out animal level extreme feelings of "I have GOT to get out of here" similar to panic attacks I guess.

None of it was good anyway suffice to say. In general people in my family genetically seem to have both a very low pain threshold and a very high anesthetic immunity. Neither of which is a good thing, but together is even worse.

My mother even recalls having her tonsils out under general anesthetic, and being paralyzed for the whole procedure unable to communicate to the doctors that she was actually awake and aware of the full pain of the full procedure. Crazy stuff She was even later able to embarrass the doctor by relating back to him much of the conversation he was having while working on her.

Anyway my appointment is "conversation only" I think so first step for me is to overcome my phobia in just getting myself over the threshold that first time. One step at a time. I am bad enough and phobic enough that if I can not find someone offering "sleep" possibilities to get me through, I might consider one of those many "Dental holiday packages" to countries that do.

I remember those injections from back in Ireland, one scraped my jaw bone, horrible feeling. But this time around there was nothing like that, just a little prick on each side of the jaw. You don't even feel the one on the outside, there is a slight prick on the inside and that is it.

Yeah, you will feel the movement, scraping, drilling, etc. But there is zero pain. I can't help you with the phobia, I can just reassure you that compared to even 15 years ago, it is actually very straight forward now. I am sure the dentist can help put your mind at ease. Best of luck

gramar wrote: »

I was bricking it too and put it off for years but when I finally did go I realised what an utter spa I had been.

I would probably feel that too had it not been for the two awful experiences I had. The first one was bad enough, so bad the dentist ended by telling my brother (who had been the one tasked with taking me to the dentist as I was rather young) to go straight to the shop and buy me a large bottle of coke and a few mars bars because I was seemingly "in shock" in his words.

Dentists RECOMMENDING coke and mars bars is uncommon enough to represent just how bad it was.

But the SECOND visit, with my jaw being ripped off any my tooth essentially and effectively exploding in my mouth...... well that was just another level entirely.

But yes the THIRD visit where they surgically removed the remains of that tooth and the FISH HOOK root that caused the agony..... was a dream because it was a general anesthetic.

I remember the basic tiny prick of that..... then a few seconds of my vision acting like an old television going out of tune with a picture scrolling up and down all over the place.... and that was it.

Given the choice therefore, I am all for recreating option 3