How to Get Over Your Fear of the Dentist

 How to Get Over Your Fear of the Dentist

Find a friendly dentist - they do exist!

How to Get Over Your Fear of the Dentist

Like every profession, different dentists have different personalities. 

Spend a bit of time selecting the one that you are most likely to get on with.

Don't settle for just meeting the receptionist or taking their word for the friendliness of their boss. Actually arrange a short chat session with the person who'll be glaring into your mouth and poking around in it.

Check how your dentist deals with nervous patients

You're by no means alone in your fear of dentists. When I quizzed my own dental practitioner on the subject a few years back, she admitted that she never looked forward to a visit to her dentist.

As with friendliness, some dentists will be more likely to put their patients at ease than others.

If their first reaction is that no-one is ever afraid of them, maybe they haven't thought about the subject or how best to deal with it. Or maybe their patients are all so big they would scare the dentist rather than the other way round.

Either way, you'll know from the reaction you get whether it's an issue they are happy to deal with or whether you should go to the next person on your checklist.

Drag a friend along with you

Sometimes all we need to quell our fear of dentists is the presence of someone we know and trust.

OK, your friend almost certainly won't stop the dentist from prodding around your teeth with what look like torture instruments. But the mere fact of them being with you, maybe holding your hand if they can prize it from its grip of the dentist's chair, is often a great help.

Learn to relax

Most people turn stiff as a rod as soon as they lie down on the dentist's chair. Myself included. It's the fear response kicking in.

But learning to relax is a way to get around this response or at least lessen the worry when you do encounter that grinning professional in the white coat.

Quieten those nagging voices

You know, the voices in your head that run through all the possible scenarios even though you're only going for a five-minute checkup.

Again, relaxation techniques can help you to turn down the volume control in your mind and send those awkward and worrying voices packing, helping to reduce your fear of the dentist.

Maybe give yourself the fun feeling of washing them down the receptacle with the pink running water that always seems to be next to a dentist's chair!

By: Trevor Johnson