For the last 25 years, I've lived with a secret that only a few people close to me knew about. This is something that I've been ashamed of and has literally impacted every single day of my life.
My secret is that I've not been to the dentist in roughly 25 years. This was not the result of laziness or a belief that it wasn't important.
Let me start at the beginning and explain what lead me down this path.
When I was about 7 years old (maybe I was a little older), I was playing with our new puppy on the living room floor. I was a kid and wasn't as careful as I should have been. I was playing tug of war with a cloth toy and I decided it would be a great idea to put my end in my mouth, pretending I was a puppy too..
Our dog kept biting higher and higher up the toy, reducing the distance between my mouth and hers.
At one point, she went one bite too far and latched onto my bottom jaw. I didn't feel anything. I didn't even realize anything was wrong until blood was everywhere.
On that last bite, she had managed to rip out the only adult tooth I had in my mouth and did some other damage in the process.
I was rushed to the hospital and then taken to an emergency oral surgeon.
All I can remember is being restrained. My arms were strapped down and extended outward in the anatomical position. I was screaming because I was in pain and I was terrified.
I remember receiving painful injections directly into the tooth socket. After the painful injections, they had me breath gas. I remember being convinced that I would count back from 10 to 1 and still be awake.
The next thing I remember is waking up after it was all done.
They had managed to put the tooth back but had to remove part of my gums, as well as part of the inside of my lower lip.
This was the first of 3 or 4 truly terrifying dentist related experiences I had before hitting double digits. At the same time I began trying to cope with this trauma, I was being traumatized in other, unrelated ways.
I began having reoccurring nightmares (every single night) of my teeth falling out. I never got help for any of this and it continued to fester until my freshman year in college, at which point I finally broke and never went back to the dentist.
So we're clear, I didn't verbally express this fear of the dentist until later on. As for the other trauma, I only recently came forward.
Back then, counseling just wasn't really something on our radar.
Whenever I experienced stress, my head would immediately react by reliving my past dental trauma. I know that sounds weird but it's the truth.
Speaking only about the dental trauma at this point, I lived in fear and shame because I felt like a coward for not just going to the dentist. That only made things worse.
When it came to my own kids, I was never able to be part of taking them to the dentist until recently because I was unable to hide my fear and I didn't want to spread that to my kids. Lizze and one of our Mom's would take the kids.
I felt so much guilt for sending my kids to do something that scared them and that I was unable to do for myself.
Over the years, I've never had any problems with my teeth and almost obsessively took care of them.
Fast forward to 2018 and I turned 40 years old. I became so tired of living in fear and allowing that fear to control my life. I wanted my 40th year to mark a milestone change in my life. I had already lost 40 lbs and brought all my numbers back in very healthy ranges. I was managing my depression and generally feeling good about the future. The only thing hanging over my head was going back to the dentist.
While all that was important to me, the most important, however, was being able to look my kids in the eyes, knowing that I was no longer a hypocrite.
Fast forward to yesterday, December 6, 2018 and I finally returned to the dentist.
I went alone because I felt I needed to do this on my own in order to truly own the experience. I didn't take any medication, even though it was available because I felt that if I was altered in any way, I wouldn't truly experience the visit and I desperately needed to overcome this paralyzing fear.
I've been asked what I was afraid of and honestly, I couldn't single anything out. I'm not afraid of pain or anything like that. I think it was simply fear of being in the chair, like I was when I was at the oral surgeon all those years ago. I was definitely nervous that after 25 years, I was going to have major problems. That was definitely a worry.
Anyway, my first appointment went really, really well. I was really scared but it went well.
The dentist and hygienist couldn't believe it'd been that long between appointments.
I have two tiny cavities and honestly, the last time I was at the dentist, I remember them saying there were two small cavities they wanted to keep an eye on.
That was it.
There were issues I knew about like wisdom teeth. Although I didn't realize I had 3. I knew I had one that recently showed up and is impacted but painless. Those will have to come out but I don't that that's a huge deal.
I was then scheduled for a minor cleaning for the following day and as I'm writing this, that cleaning has come and gone.
There was some minor cleanup on my bottom front teeth but that was it.
They said I was in really, really good shape. In the area where I had the tooth reimplanted (bottom front teeth), there is minor gum recession on the back side and very minor bone loss.
That sorta freaks me out but that area had been through a great deal and they explained that as long as I keep doing what I'm doing and come back every 6 months, there's nothing to worry about. Of course, I'm worried anyway because that's what I do. Everything feels different and that's good but it also sorta freaks me out.
I'm very angry with myself for letting things go for so long but in reality, I'm very, very, very lucky.
All of my teeth are in really good shape.
The only problem I have at this point is that after the cleaning on the bottom teeth, there are some very sharp edges along the bottom on two of the teeth at the gumline. It's constantly cutting my tongue and I need to see if they can smooth them out. I'm actually sorta desperate St this point because the tip of my tongue is all sliced up.
My hygienist said that the lower teeth weren't really bad at all but they would probably take some getting used to because they're going to feel a little different. While that's true, I don't think she realized how sharp they are and I didn't realize until later in the day.
I have to wait until Monday to talk to them about this.
I go back next week to get the 2 tiny cavities fixed and I'm hoping they can just soerts round the edges a bit. After that, all I need to do is visit the oral surgeon.
I'm not excited about getting my wisdom teeth removed but they'll knock me out for that. I have a consult with the oral surgeon on Gavin's birthday next month. It'll probably be a little wait after that but the procedure itself won't take long and after that, I'm good to go.
I feel a tremendous sense of relief for having faced and conquered my lifelong fear.
I think once I get used to the way things feel now, I'll be fine. It's so much worse in my head than what it actually is.
Something I need to deal with is learning to move forward. I've been worrying about this for so long now that it's going to take some time to let it go. I think that's part of why I'm so stressed out about the minor issues I have with my bottom teeth. I can absolutely keep it from ever getting worse but in a weird way, there's comfort in the panic. I'm so used to this fear that moving past it might be a bit of a process.
Regardless, I found the courage to not only make it back to the dentist but also share my experience and encourage others not to make the same mistakes I did.
Fear can be an important tool sometimes. It can help keep us safe but it can also dictate our decessions and control our lives.
Don't let fear control your life.
