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Dental Education

Frightened of the dentist – part 2!

10th January 2017

A busy week for dentists in the media, and great to see Andrea Downey at The Sun pick up on another aspect of being frightened of the dentist. In her article, she highlights this disturbing fact. About 12% of us are crippled by extreme fear at the prospect of a dental visit.

But what she goes on to describe is a common reason why fear, associated with pain might arise.

Why might we be frightened of the dentist?

Because there is a biological reason for our fear. Because of the nerve structures around our teeth, the dentist may have been using insufficient pain killer or local anaesthetic. Up to a fifth of us have a second nerve near our top teeth, that also needs numbing. frightened of the dentist

But the dentist may not automatically give more than one injection. So what do we do? We grip the arms of the chair and suffer, instead of speaking up!

If we don’t tell the dentist we are still in pain, then he may not do anything about it! Dentists don’t want their patients to be in any discomfort. So if you still feel pain at any point in time, please let us know so we can make your visit as comfortable as possible.

Thank you!