Dentophobia: what is it and how to get rid of it?

Beautiful teeth are always great! However, to obtain them, you must carefully monitor the state of the oral cavity. Dentists help with this, in other words, dentists. Medicine has made great strides forward, and doctors have at their fingertips many tools that can make treatment painless. But in modern society there are many people who are afraid of dentists to the point of panic. This condition is called dentophobia.

Sociological research suggests that most people on our planet are afraid of dentists. This is a completely natural fear, since dental treatment involves removing a nerve. And this is not a very pleasant procedure. In addition, before starting to carry out any manipulations, the doctor makes an anesthetic injection, which is also called anesthesia. It is this moment that causes horror for many. And such people make up 30% of the total population of the earth.

This condition is insurmountable and is called dentophobia (stomatophobia, odontophobia). People who are among those who experience an obsessive condition and do not go to see a doctor until irreversible processes associated with tooth loss begin in the body belong to the group of dentophobes.

It is not uncommon for a person to experience quite severe pain, but he still tries not to pay attention to it anyway. Having brought the situation to the point of absurdity, when a healthy tooth that could be cured turns into an area of ​​serious health risk, the patient decides to visit the dental office.At this moment, common sense prevails, and the dentophobe develops a fear of losing his life, which overcomes the fear of the dentist.

The person literally forces himself to go to the clinic. An internal struggle leads to anxiety. Therefore, in front of the dentist's office, the patient becomes even more afraid. Then he enters the office on "wadded" legs and sits down in a chair to examine the oral cavity. At this moment, he may start a real panic attack. This will be facilitated by the environment and odors that are present in dentistry.

Especially this condition develops before tooth extraction. For some people, this fear is associated with various reasons. The older generation had to treat their teeth without anesthesia. The unbearable pain stuck deep in the mind, and now it is difficult to overcome. Among dentophobes, there are people with an increased pain threshold. This factor also influences the development of fear. In any case, if there is a phobia, then it is necessary to get to the bottom of the cause of its occurrence.

Going to the doctor, and even more so to the dentist, is always stressful. It is caused by the fact that the person is in the unknown of the diagnosis. When something hurts in the body, the individual experiences anxiety about the development of further events and the severity of the course of the disease.

There is a category of people who are very afraid to have their teeth removed. Each such operation is perceived as a small death or the loss of something irrevocable. Because of this, the patient experiences longing, which develops into fear. When fear appears in the patient's mind, the brain begins to draw pictures that look one more terrible than the other. As a result, a person may imagine that the doctor will remove the wrong tooth or leave it completely without teeth.

Then negative fantasies become very large, for example, such: without beautiful and white teeth, a person loses attractiveness. Further - more: in order to remain the same as before, you will have to pay a tidy sum, which will allow you to restore your previous appearance. And this is another task that needs to be solved.

That's why it can be concluded that dentophobia is inherent in a large number of people for a reason... There are many reasons for its occurrence. For example, a person, while still in childhood, had a tooth pulled out unsuccessfully. During the operation, it was very painful or after it there was a strong inflammation. Over time, all these unpleasant moments were forgotten, but unpleasant events occurred in life that led to stress. And then the tooth began to hurt! As a result of the heat of passions, memories of an unsuccessful trip to the dentist surfaced in the mind of a person. All the troubles came together, and anxiety began.

To postpone the unpleasant moment of going to the doctor, the individual began to take medications for pain. But they could not remove anxiety, since a trip to the dentist was inevitable. And every day of expectation of trouble only exacerbated the fear. The days of illness acted to further develop the phobia. As a result, the tooth was removed with complications due to the fact that the treatment process was started. So a persistent state of phobia arose, which may well end in a severe course of the disease. And it will need to be treated with the help of specialists.

Phobias can be divided into three types.

• Imaginary - It occurs in people (mainly children) who have never been to the dentist, but still think they may experience unpleasant feelings from this visit.
• Acquired - this is when a bad experience left in the past makes itself felt. This type is the most common.
• Congenital - the rarest type of phobia. In this case, there is a negative manifestation for absolutely all medical procedures.

The symptoms of all phobias are the same.A person experiences irrational fear when he cannot really explain its origin, as well as take control of his emotions. Fear comes out of nowhere. It's just that the imagination draws unpleasant plots that are very frightening, and a person does not stop this state for known reasons. Panic attacks before going to the dentist occur long before the visit to the doctor. As soon as a person finds out the exact time and date of admission, then he immediately has a decadent mood.

Any sane person understands that it is necessary to go to the doctor, and he begins to persuade himself. A positive-minded patient reassures himself that he will soon get rid of pain and this problem in general. Dentophobe, on the contrary, draws such plots where the whole treatment will end with new pain and new problems appearing. Some people imagine that they will have an allergic reaction from the anesthesia and die within minutes in the dentist's chair. From such obsessive thoughts, the person's condition worsens as the date of the visit to the doctor approaches.

Experienced dentists have learned to distinguish between the main signs of stomatophobia that run counter to the patient's simple anxiety. So, let's list them:

• refusal to contact a doctor;
• very strong muscle tension;
• panic anxiety;
• a person cannot control his actions and cannot perform simple movements;
• sudden headache;
• urge to vomit;
• violation of cardiac activity (a sharp change in pressure, respiratory failure, vascular spasms);
• frequent urination;
• fainting or light-headedness;
• increased sweating;
• discoloration of the skin.

All these symptoms indicate that the patient is experiencing a very strong phobia. From this state, his entire body begins to malfunction, which leads to the onset of more serious diseases. Any doctor will say that it is necessary to get rid of these manifestations as soon as possible.

You can overcome dentophobia yourself. Strong-minded individuals and people who experience frequent positive emotions rarely think about the fact that they will have to go through unpleasant moments. They take a visit to the doctor for granted, a moment that just needs to be experienced without unnecessary emotions.

Others, on the contrary, begin to wind themselves up and fight with their "I". Their fears are not groundless, but now there are a lot of clinics that have changed the approach to treating people. A top-class dentist must have human qualities: to calm the patient down in time and help get rid of fear.

In order to identify the cause of the fear, the dentist will definitely find contact with the patient. A relationship of trust will help overcome the problem. To overcome the fear of the doctor in children and adults, it is necessary to work on the problem in a comprehensive way.

In more severe cases, specialists such as a psychologist or psychotherapist can help overcome the phobia. Psychologists work with persuasion methods, while psychotherapists use more drastic measures. But before proceeding with the techniques, both the one and the other specialist need to identify the cause of the fear. With the right approach, this can be done quite quickly, and with timely treatment, the treatment period will be significantly reduced. To remedy the situation, certain methods are used.

The psychotherapeutic method helps to understand the essence of the obsessive state and find methods for getting out of a difficult situation. It is necessary for a person to realize that the experiences associated with going to the doctor are a natural process.You need to learn to take control of it. To implement the recommendations will require a lot of effort both on the part of the patient and on the part of a specialist.

It is necessary to conduct conversations with the patient using certain arguments. For example, tell him that dentistry has made great strides forward and the methods of treatment have changed. Now fewer and fewer people experience pain and discomfort during dental treatment. Anesthesia has become less dangerous and more effective.

If the situation has become more difficult, then it is necessary to involve a dentist, and even a psychotherapist, in the process of getting rid of the phobia. The dentist should make sure that the patient experiences as little pain as possible. It is enough to treat the injection site with an anesthetic solution, and the injection will become less sensitive. In addition, today there is anesthesia, which is provided with the help of a computer device.

The psychotherapist will offer a variety of techniques related to both beliefs and medication. If the patient has a persistent fear of visiting the dentist, then premedication is used, which consists in taking sedatives or stabilizers. In more severe cases, the patient is prescribed antidepressants. They help restore active production and regulation of serotonin metabolism in the brain. As a result, anxiety is reduced and a stable state of rest ensues.

Before proceeding with useful advice, you need to know that earlier people who suffered from stomatophobia were denied a number of procedures. Prosthetics were not recommended for those who could not overcome their fear of pain. As a result, people remained toothless for the rest of their lives. With the advent of modern anesthesia and the expansion of dental services, this problem has been eliminated.

However, the studies carried out revealed that out of a hundred people, about 2% have never visited a dentist, and one in ten patients experiences anxiety when visiting the dentist. Women are most susceptible to stomatophobia.

In order not to be afraid of visiting the dentist, you must heed the following recommendations.

• Choose only proven and highly qualified specialists. Then your visit to the doctor will not be complicated by unnecessary worries and pain.
• The dentist's office should inspire calmness. A good specialist will exclude a long queue where people with an unstable psyche will be. A large crowd of people is always alarming.
• It should be remembered that dental treatment is your beautiful smile and good health.
• If your doctor treats his work responsibly and you are satisfied with his work, then visit only him.

Simple tips will help you keep your peace of mind. You will stop feeling anxious. And, perhaps, you will completely forget about your unfounded fears.

For more information on how to overcome dentophobia, see the next video.