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Overcoming My Anticipation, Anxiety

  • Aug 17 / 2013
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Overcoming My Anticipation, Anxiety

My anticipation anxiety has been pretty bad recently, so I took a half-dose of my usual tranquilizer before my aunt drove me to my appointment with my dentist. And then I sat down. And the anxiety kicked in. I sort of laid down across the chairs in the waiting room before I was called back. My aunt said it was only about six minutes.

So I sat in the dental chair and told him which tooth was causing me problems. He actually listened to me and put me at ease. I’m not even sure the tranquiller was necessary, but I get so worried that things are going to go wrong everywhere I go.

He explained that I needed a filling and that he could do it right away. Once I agreed, he rubbed a painkiller on my gums, then I didn’t even feel the needle as it went it. I wish I hadn’t seen it either because needles make me feel weird, but I looked over at the wrong time.

Anyway, I felt a little twitch in my eye, but he and the nurse explained that this happens in a certain percentage of patients. Okay. No big deal. The nurse even said that I did really well with the injection. That made me feel kinda silly because I’m an adult and shouldn’t need to be told that, but I liked it. She was being maternal, I think.

I don’t really like drills. Needles are okay, I guess, but drills really bother me. But my dentist uses a special kind of drill that doesn’t make as much noise and doesn’t get as hot. That helped a little. All that really bothered me was spraying cold water on my teeth, but that’s because I’m hypersensitive to cold. I told them that and they changed the way they did things so I felt less of the cold water.

I had a little swelling in my jaw and my eyelid was a bit numb, but I sat in the waiting room for a little while and everything went back to normal or almost normal. My aunt took me home and I was fine within two or three hours.

I guess I’m a little more nervous than most, but even though I had the complication with the eye and the swelling, there was never any real pain or discomfort. I guess I’m a wimp and am complaining to much, but I want you to understand that I like my dentist and how nice he and everyone were to me.

When I need to go to the dentist again he’s the one I’ll go to. He’s a lot better than anyone else I’ve been to, and maybe I’ll get over some of my fears and issues before I have to go back.

I’ll probably still take the tranquilizer next time, but maybe I’ll only take a quarter of it. It depends on how I feel that day. The more I confront things that bother me, the better I feel. And my tooth hasn’t hurt at all after I had the deep filling. So I’m happy with this experience.

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