dentophobia
Today I learned that there is a word for the irrational fear of dentists: dentophobia. Apparently there’s also a fancier version of the word: odontophobia. Yesterday, I went to the dentist for the fourth or fifth time this year, something that would have sent pre-25-year-old me off the deep end. Growing up I absolutely hated the dentist. We got off to a poor start, because who likes having a person’s hands (much less middle aged man hands) in your mouth? On top of that, my dentist favored efficiency over comfort, and his methods regularly revealed the similarities between dentistry and carpentry.
What led to my multiple visits this year was a tiny filling on my upper right molar that at first, sat too high. We filed it down twice? three times? and then when it couldn’t be filed down any further, we simply refilled it. The original filling was composite, nice and white, cured with UV light. The new filling reverts to the old-school metal style. Ironically, I happen to have a filling on the other side of mouth in the exact same spot - upper left molar, second from the back - so for anyone losing sleep over it, the symmetry inside of my mouth has now been restored. I didn’t know the metal filling was the plan, but the dentist asked me if I’d be okay with trying something different from the composite, since at this point he was also at a loss as to why the tooth was still bothering me. I was surprised when he asked, because what did I know about fillings? I’d never been consulted by my dentist on approach; our relationship was a purely prescriptive one where as a result of the universe’s whims that day, I would either have a standard biannual cleaning, or I’d leave with a directive to return and face the comically large lidocaine needle. Who knew you could have communication and agency at the dentist?? Certainly not the kid who got their wiggly baby tooth snatched away without any warning when the dentist told her he just wanted to “take a look”… Anyways, I guess the moral of the story here is that some things really do change with time. I thought dentophobia was one of my immutable character traits and my relationship with dentistry would always involve pinching myself to stay still in the chair, but turns out I can now be trusted to both not bite my dentist’s fingers off and (partially) decide what his hands are doing in my mouth. And maybe that’s part of what has faded the dentophobia into just…dento-distaste?
Also, my current dentist actually took over for his dad, who was both of our first dentists, and during one of these many recent visits we bonded over how traumatic his dad’s practice was. Probably one of the top 5 validating things a man has ever said to me.