Maintaining healthy teeth and gums is essential for our overall health. The majority of heart disease begins with bacteria entering the bloodstream via the gums. Dentophobia is a phobia of dentists and dental procedures. For people with dentophobia, seeking even essential dental treatments can be difficult.

However, overcoming dentophobia and keeping your teeth and gums healthy is possible. There is a range of treatment options available.

What Causes Dentophobia?

Like any phobia, dentophobia often manifests without an apparent cause. If someone has a difficult or traumatic experience at the dentist, this can lead to a long-term fear. If dentophobia arises as a result of past trauma, trauma counselling can help to alleviate it in many people.

Visit a Dental Fear Clinic

Dental fear clinics are specialist clinics that dentists set up expressly to help patients who are struggling with dental anxiety. This treatment can mean overcoming a past trauma or addressing misconceptions about dentistry that lead to fear in the patient.

Talk to A Dentist about Relaxation Techniques Remotely

If you don’t have a dedicated dental fear clinic in your local area, you might still be able to obtain valuable counselling from a qualified dentist. It is worth contacting your local dentist practice to ask if the dentist offers any kind of patient counselling or reassurance.

There are a variety of relaxation techniques that dentists can recommend to patients who are finding it difficult to pursue the treatment they need because of their anxiety. For example, both meditation and mindfulness are effective tools for reducing and managing stress on a daily basis.

Medication

In cases where a patient with dentophobia needs to have treatment, dentists may offer them medication to enable them to undergo the procedure. Anti-anxiety medication can eliminate the physical symptoms of anxiety. For some people, reducing physical symptoms enables them to manage their psychological stress more easily.

Alternatives to the Dentist

If you suspect that you have a serious medical issue, such as persistent pain or infections, you should always speak to a doctor or dentist. However, there are some issues that you can solve at home without a trip to the dentist.

For example, if your teeth need straightening, you can order a set of custom clear aligners online. You can do this through a site such as Straight My Teeth who will send you an impression kit that you bite into to create an impression. You then send the kit back, and they will send you a set of clear aligners.

To straighten your teeth, you will need to wear the aligners for 8-10 hours a day for 8-12 months. You don’t need to visit a dentist because businesses like Straight My Teeth employ qualified dentists to oversee the production of your aligners.

Dentophobia is an underreported condition, but it is one that can have a significant impact on the sufferer’s life. In the most severe cases, dentophobia prevents people from seeking treatment that they badly need. The potential health ramifications of this are much more severe than most people realise.