Written By Aoife O’Donoghue
Dental treatment can be daunting for a person at any age and for many reasons. If you suffer from dental anxiety, we can help.
The obvious first step is to find a dentist you can trust.
However, you may initially feel nervous and anxious even thinking about the dentist, so you put off finding someone who can help; or you find someone, but put off making an appointment.
Being afraid of the dentist means different things to different people. Maybe it’s the thought that treatment will hurt, or that the sounds and smells bring back memories of bad experiences as a child.
Karen Coates, a dental adviser at the British Dental Health Foundation, says the organisation’s dental helpline receives many calls about fear and phobia. “People who are scared of the dentist often call us for help because they’re at the end of their tether. Their teeth don’t look nice any more or they’re in a lot of pain with toothache, and they want to make the first step to seeing a dentist and getting their teeth sorted out.
“Some people have such bad dental phobia that they haven’t seen a dentist for years. It’s common for us to hear from someone in their twenties or thirties or even older who hasn’t been to the dentist since childhood.”
The good news is that we understand these fears. Here at the dental spa, we pride ourselves on our calm and unhurried approach to caring for our patients. We give plenty of time to each appointment and take great pains to ensure that all treatment is considered carefully and discussed fully with our patients and where relevant, the patient’s carers or parents.
With a combination of kindness and gentleness we can do a lot to make dental treatment stress free.
Aoife O’Donoghue joined the Dental Spa in 2013. She has worked in a senior position for the Primary Care Trust, gaining extensive experience in caring for patients with Special Needs and Dental Anxiety.
To Book an appointment with Aoife please call 01743 343433 to speak to one of our Patient Advisors or email info@the-dentalspa.co.uk for more information.