Dental Phobia
Dental phobia is the fear of dentists or any dental procedure. This phobia is mostly caused by fear of pain. More often than not, the fear comes from a previous visit to the dentist thus you assume the pain you felt is the same as the one you felt in the beginning.
When you have dental phobia you postpone or avoid appointment to the dentist. Thus increasing the fear, due to lack of professional reassurances.
Common Causes of Dental Phobia
Bad experiences: dental phobia is sometimes caused by past bad or horrific experiences with the dentist. This might be too much pain or humiliation.
History of abuse: a physically or emotionally abused person especially in childhood will develop dental phobias if the abuse is in connection with a dentist.
Humiliation Humiliating: hurting or insensitive remarks about your teeth by a dentist may also cause dental phobia.
Vicarious learning: this is transferred from one person to another. A parent who has dental phobia can cause the children to have the same phobia because of what they see from their parent.
Common Dental Fears
Embarrassment: this is where you feel that your teeth are not in the good condition for anyone to see thus fearing a lecture form the dentist.
Pain: most people get dental phobia from the idea that it involves a lot of pain. This might be from injections. Fear due to injection is often exhibited from people who fear needles.
Smells sounds and sights: you might have phobia for this if you see the tools used by the dentists, smell of the place of dental surgery.
Numbness: some people fear the feeling of numbness due to the aesthetic used. If you had a history of asthma or throat problems, or panic attacks you might associate numbness with not being able to breathe.
Wrong treatment: you might be worried that the dentist will carry out a wrong treatment. This happens mostly if you suspect the previous treatment was not necessary or didn’t work well.
Symptoms of Dental Phobia include: Shortness of breath and Anxiety on the thought of visiting a dentist. Lack of sleep the night before visiting the dentist is also a sign of fear.
Overcoming Dental Phobia
Some of the simple things to do to avoid dental phobia are.
Distraction techniques: you can take a personal music player when going to the dentist to take your mind away from the procedures of treatment.
Hypnotherapy and counseling: hypnotherapy can be the best way to treat anxiety you are not forced to be hypnotized and it does not involve taking any medicine. Counselling involves talking to a professional about you fears. Counseling helps people overcome their fears.
Visit a supportive dentist: let him know your fears beforehand. Let him give you a step by step guide of what will happen. So that you are mentally prepared on what’s coming to avoid dental phobia.
PreEmptiveHealing.com offers a unique solution to combat dental phobia. Come and visit today and make your fear of the dentist a thing of the past.