Over 80% of the American population suffers from some level of anxiety when it comes visiting the dentist. Common dental cleaning procedures consist of drills, needles, x-rays, floss, and mechanical brushes, all of which can trigger stress in someone who has dental anxiety. Although, when this irrational fear causes one to completely avoid seeing their dentist, that’s when this anxiety progresses to become a full-on dental phobia. Fortunately, with a bit of help and focus, dental anxiety can indeed be beaten. Read below to learn proven and simple tricks to overcoming your debilitating dental anxiety.
Methods to Overcome Dental Anxiety
When faced with the reality that your dentist appointment is tomorrow, do you start to sweat? Does your heart start to race or do you feel like you might possibly faint? Do you even debate on whether you should cancel the appointment altogether? First and foremost, before leaning to heavily into your fears, try the following tricks to help alleviate your dental anxiety:
- Communicate With Your Dentist: It’s important to break down the walls of embarrassment and articulate your anxieties with your dentist. This will help them understand your behavior as well as approach your appointment with gentleness.
- Bring a Supportive Friend: Whether it’s a family member or an understanding friend, the presence of someone you trust can distract you from the stress you’d typically feel from visiting the dentist.
- Calming Breathing Exercises: As this is a tactic that helps reduce overall stress in a litany of situations, focusing on taking deep slow breaths can effectively lower your heart rate and relax your muscles.
- Meditation: Being a technique you can actually practice in the dental chair, as long as you communicated with your dentist, meditation is a simple practice to promote calmness and reduce stress. Relax your muscles, close your eyes, and allow your mind and body to relax at any point in your dentist appointment if you feel the anxiety coming on.
If your dental anxiety isn’t helped by any of the above tactics, then you may have dental phobia, or sometimes called Dentophobia, instead. To reduce the uncomfortable symptoms of dentophobia, here are some effective methods that have been proven to help:
- Conscious Sedation: For those who suffer from severe dental phobia, dentists may prescribe anxiety-relieving medication or even medication for conscious sedation. For both options, you won’t be fully asleep, however you’ll be conscious and responsive in a very relaxed state throughout your appointment.
- General Anesthesia: Some dental offices can provide general anesthesia for certain individuals who haven’t found success with any other methods. In a process that involves the patient to be fully unconscious, your dentist will conduct their cleaning or procedure while you’re unable to feel anxious.
Practice Positive Oral Health
For those 80% of people who experience some level of dental anxiety, the stress isn’t generally felt from a simple cleaning. However, larger procedures such as filling a cavity, reversing gum disease, or resolving a root canal all commonly cause one to feel a sense of dread. To eliminate these potential phobia-inducing reactions, it’s best to take care of your oral health to reduce the risk of ever needing to undergo any of these procedures.
To prevent these numerous painful health complications, it’s important to practice affective oral health habits beforehand. Flossing is the only way to remove this tartar from between your teeth and keep plaque out of hard-to-reach places. Some modern flossing accessories, GumChucks being the prime example, are specifically designed to accomplish C-Shape flossing. Unlike one-piece flossers that hold the floss in a rigid position, GumChucks’ two-handle device gives you better leverage, letting you control the tension of the floss and allowing you to effectively clean the sides of each tooth. The handles make it easier for everyone to floss, especially those with limited dexterity, with the added bonus of never having to stick your fingers in your mouth!
GumChucks’ design ensures a flossing experience that’s faster, easier, and more effective than competing flossers or traditional floss. Our two handles with disposable floss allow you to comfortably reach all your teeth, even those in the back, while wrapping the floss around each tooth. This creates the vital “C-Shape” necessary to get below the gum line and effectively clean each tooth.
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