London dentists look at why dental phobia needs more attention

You are at the dentist office. If the perspiration is falling from your face, your heart rate is increasing, your hands are shaking and you’re only in the waiting room, you’re not alone. Four out of the five people sitting there feel the same way. When the technician calls your name, the shaking gets worse and your stomach turns over. Why? You have what is known as dental phobia (fear of the dentist, the dental work, dentistry, and that entire field of medicine).

What is the reason behind it?

Dental work, while thought to be minor on a medical scale, can become majorly horrific to a person who is fearful. Some dentists offer sedation (some light and some heavy) in order to calm the patient and make the procedures more tolerable. However, very little is known as to why people are so apprehensive. The very person, who would go to a general practitioner and endure poking and probing, blood work and injections with minimal stress, would walk on hot coals in order to avoid dental work.

Whether generated by white coats and sterile surroundings, the equipment that has the appearance of robotic arms or simply the possibility of pain, the major cause for dental phobia is unknown. Many phobias are caused by the fear of the loss of control of the situation or helplessness. Some are caused by the mere site of objects or people. Other phobias appear to have no recognisable basis. Fight or flight panic attacks control the patients whole being and for a time nothing can be done to calm the fear.

The truth about dental phobia

In the play, “Little Shop of Horrors,” dentists are portrayed as sadists who derive pleasure from causing pain. The play is funny, the perception is not. Many patients feel that dentists are uncaring and malicious when actually the opposite is true. Dentists strive to eliminate any pain or discomfort and many dentists will contact patients after a procedure is done in order to make sure everything is okay. However, many people consider dental work as an unnecessary evil and they put off going to the dentist as long as possible. This action in itself is harmful because in the long run, putting off needed dental work causes the need for more dental work.

More studies should be done into why so many patients are afraid of dental procedures. Dental phobia is very real and very debilitating. Sedation helps, Novocaine helps, sodium pentothal helps, but to date nothing exists that can take away the knot in the stomach when a patient realises it’s once again time to go to the dentist.

Posted in: Dental Phobia
Tags: anxiety, dental treatment, scared of dentist, sedation
| November 30, 2011 at 1:40 pm | No comment

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