Apprehension prior to a dental appointment – or any appointment for that matter – is perfectly natural. However, if anxiety and fear become so pronounced prior to appointments that it begins to affect your dental hygiene, then you may be experiencing dental phobia or anxiety. Over a long period, this can seriously affect your oral hygiene. Here at Dental Solutions, we are very experienced with dental phobic patients and provide a friendly relaxed environment, where your needs are our top priority. Our latest modern dental techniques ensure that dentistry is not painful in any way, guaranteed.
Typically, dental phobia is triggered by the loss of control, fear of pain, embarrassment or simply a bad past experience. But, these factors do not have to prevent you from maintaining good oral hygiene. There are a number of techniques you can use to try and tackle your dental phobia head-on. Here are a few of the ways you can work to get yourself back into a dental chair:
Understanding and being willing to treat your dental phobia is the first step to gradually overcome it. First and foremost, list your fears to both better understand what they are exactly and come to terms with them. Having such a list can also give you a starting point to discuss your fears more fully with your dentist or another healthcare professional.
Having an appointment to simply discuss your smile or fear before any treatment is completed is a constructive way to deal with your fears. This can help you to acclimatise to the environment of the practice, helping you to associate it with a pleasant chat rather than the fear of an appointment. You don’t even have to sit in the dentist chair at this point if you don’t want to. But, it could help to make you feel less vulnerable or expectant of pain when in that same situation later in your treatment.
There is no magical cure for dental fear. But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn to manage it in healthy and sustainable ways. There are a number of effective relaxation techniques you can use to achieve better management of your dental fears. The aim of a good relaxation technique is to relax your muscles and slow down your heartbeat, as these symptoms of anxiety and panic can simply make you feel worse. By controlling these symptoms you can hopefully help to reduce your dental fear over a long period of time. Many patients at Dental Solutions report Mindfulness apps or courses are particularly helpful.
Tackling your dental phobia is only possible with the support and care of the right dental practice, which makes your choice of dentist vitally important. At Dental Solutions, our practice is Nervous Patient Approved. We ensure we provide a helpful, friendly, atmosphere where your needs are the top priority for everyone involved in your treatment.
For added help during your appointments, we also have a television screen embedded in the ceilings of all our dental surgeries. This is there so you can watch programmes or even listen to music during appointments, whatever helps you feel most at ease. Our waiting rooms are also full of a selection of magazines, chilled water and even fresh fruit, providing you with everything you need to simply relax.
And if that’s not enough, our team of friendly faces – including our dentists and hygienists – are always there with an encouraging smile.
Of course, we also recently explored the impact of acupuncture on dental phobia. So, if you are looking for an alternative method of managing your fear then this may be an interesting route to explore.
Are you interested in overcoming your dental phobia with the help of a Nervous Patient Approved dentist? Then contact us today by filling out the form or calling 01925 756565, we can help begin your journey in tackling dental phobia today.
