With Sedation Dentistry, Patients with Dental Phobia can Breathe Easy

For most people, visits to a dentist can bring them anxiety, but for 9 to 15 percent of Americans, simply the idea of dental visits already terrifies them. When you ask these adults what it is about dentists that they fear the most, you’re bound to get different answers. Some aren’t big fans of their dentist’s tools, while others may have had a bad experience while sitting on the dental chair.

Do-It-Yourself Dentistry Out of Fear

In the case of some people like 48-year-old Angie Barlow from the U.K., it was a horrible experience that made her avoid dental visits altogether. In a BBC documentary titled “The Truth About Your Teeth”, Barlow confessed that she had been avoiding dental visits for almost a decade and opting to superglue her broken teeth instead.

“I’ve always been scared of the dentist because my mum died at 34 from throat cancer,” she said. “She had a tooth out, and that’s how they found she had cancer.” With this terrible experience haunting the back of her mind, she resorted to do-it-yourself dentistry to solve her dental problems.

Repercussions and Solutions

Dental phobia may have contributed to her poor oral health, but it’s also her smoking habit that gradually damaged her teeth further. Within the decade that she had been using superglue to keep her teeth in place, she lost over 90 percent of the bone supporting all her teeth in the upper jaw.

Only recently, she found the courage to walk to a dental office and used her life savings to receive emergency dental surgery. During the surgery, 11 of her top teeth were extracted, while six titanium screws were inserted into her jaw, along with 12 new teeth permanently attached to them. Needless to say, her smile drastically improved after, and shared that she gained a new sense of self-confidence and no longer feels ashamed when talking to other people, including her son.

How Sedation Dentistry can Help

Barlow’s tale is just among the many others showing the drastic changes dental implants can have on one’s smile, however damaged it may be. Dental implants are as strong as your natural teeth, and, with proper care, can last for years.

Are you anxious or terrified with the idea of undergoing the knife for implants? You can be relieved to know that dental clinics like Advanced Dental Care of Springfield in Springfield, IL offer sedation dentistry, making dental visits and procedures more bearable and less stress-inducing.

Sources:

DIY Dental Care: British Woman Superglues Broken Teeth For 10 Years Over Fear Of Dentist Chair, Medical Daily, June 2, 2015

Superglue Broken Teeth: Woman ‘Super-Glues’ Teeth For 10 Years Over Dentist Phobia, Inquisitr

Don’t Fear the Dentist, WebMD