Fear of the dentist: tips for the dentist

Fear of the dentist is understandable, but unhealthy. That bright light, sometimes the poking of the gums to check how healthy they still are, it's not always nice to be at the dentist. As a dentist, it is again annoying when people sit anxiously in the chair making treatment difficult. Especially if your patient has had an unpleasant experience, fear of the dentist is so born. Therefore, in this article I will discuss fear of the dentist and what you as a dentist can do about it.

Fear of the dentist is real

Fear of the dentist is real, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing that can be done about it. Usually, a bad experience at the dentist during childhood is the reason people are afraid of the dentist. For example, a friend of mine finds it difficult to go to the dentist because the dentist she had as a child simply wiggled out her loose—but not yet loose enough—molars with his thumb. That was incredibly painful.

Other experiences include anesthesia not going well for a treatment after which a nerve was hit. Shoots of pain and even flashes in front of the eyes resulted. Because you are still forced by your parents to go to the dentist as a child and adolescent, people usually go to the dentist until around the age of ²⁰, but for people with anxiety, the visit stops completely after that.

Sometimes the fear doesn’t stem from a traumatic experience at the dentist, but can evoke memories of other moments when the person experiencing the fear felt out of control. For many people who are afraid of the dentist, the lack of control is a particular problem. Because you’re lying there under that bright light, with the dentist hovering over you. With all the equipment he’s using, you can’t really talk, and that makes you—or anyone who’s anxious—feel like you have even less control than you already thought.

There are even people who dare not even drive past the dental office. Then, when you get a toothache, people with a fear of the dentist have no problem living with the pain. Rather pain than going to the dentist. The idea of going to the dentist may not even occur to anxious people. It is very wise for the health of your patients who have anxiety to do something against the fear of the dentist.

Bad teeth

As a dentist, you assess the health of teeth and gums. Of course, you know all the harmful effects and want to share this information with your patients. Bacteria that can still cause damage to the brain, heart valves, and other parts of the body—things I, as a hypnotherapist, am not aware of. Pointing out these harmful consequences to your patient sometimes only increases their fear of the dentist. It works almost exactly like cigarette packaging: it’s deadly, and yet people keep smoking because they’re going to die anyway. So you can’t overcome the fear of the dentist by using fear itself.

Highlighting benefits can already work better.

• Removing the fear of the dentist ensures that the (ex) anxious person can take good care of their teeth again.
• Large and small moments of pain are eliminated through solid treatment, allowing the anxious person to simply go back to work without painful teeth.
• You help the person with anxiety enjoy clean teeth by getting them back to the dentist and dental hygienist.

Dental anesthesia

To overcome dental anxiety, people sometimes turn to violent means, such as treatment under full anesthesia. The bottom line is that anxious people sometimes prefer to be unconscious rather than conscious while the dentist is working.

People with anxiety sometimes would rather go under anesthesia than use a local anesthetic.

This is actually incredibly strange. Often there is a fear of losing control and then they give that control away completely. Even knee keyhole surgery uses only local anesthesia, with or without an epidural.

Anesthesia is also not harmless. After anesthesia, you may suffer from concentration problems, memory problems, fatigue and more vague complaints that interfere with your overall well-being. So on balance, you don't gain anything.

Fear of dentist tips

Before getting in the chair, agree on gestures the patient can give when they are in pain. Like, "I feel something but I can still have this" is a 1 finger in the air. "This hurts Mr. very much" is a whole hand in the air.

Help the patient relax. Anxiety is often exacerbated by the body’s physical reaction. By relaxing through breathing exercises, you prevent the body from tensing up and producing too much adrenaline—a response triggered by the body’s “fight-or-flight” instinct.

Have the patient take three counts of deep breaths through the nose and three counts of exhalations through the mouth. Repeat this beforehand to stay calm. On the dental chair, the patient can continue to breathe in this calm manner, but may find it helpful to do everything through the nose. By telling people this, you give them a sense of control.

Dental specialization with anxiety

A dentist who helps people who are afraid of the dentist will restore the patient’s sense of control and try to minimize anxiety as much as possible. This is sometimes already evident in the waiting room, where items that evoke fear have been removed. For example, there are no informational photos showing how teeth are structured.

Control is returned to the patient by agreeing in advance on signals when the dentist should stop or that breaks should be taken. In addition, the dentist can regularly ask to continue.

Relaxation exercises and hypnosis are also used by some dentists to reduce treatment anxiety.

Hypnosis to overcome dental anxiety

Research shows that the use of hypnosis by dentists can significantly reduce your fear of treatment. This is because hypnosis can be used not only to combat fear of the dentist but also as a kind of mental pain reliever.

In fact, before local painkillers existed, hypnosis was used to help patients reduce pain or, conversely, not focus on pain.

Before applying hypnosis to a patient as a dentist, it is important to know his attitude toward hypnosis. If he does not have a good attitude toward it, you can suggest performing relaxation exercises. Otherwise, the patient will resist hypnosis making your attempts to help him unsuccessful.

Hypnosis can be used in three ways to reduce dental anxiety.

First, hypnosis can be used during treatment as a relaxation exercise and to make the person less sensitive to the actions you perform as a dentist. Relaxation is incompatible with anxiety, and relaxation also increases the pain threshold.

With various hypnosis techniques, you can maintain and further deepen relaxation during treatment. For example, you can give suggestions that distract from the anxiety away and stimulate the patient's imagination. In this way, you keep the patient focused on something other than the anxiety.

Second, hypnosis can be used upfront to give the patient tools to better cope with treatment. You can then provide the patient with strategies to better manage anxiety during treatment.

Third, hypnosis can be used to change the perception of fear and the beliefs that caused the fear.

One of my favorite hypnotherapy techniques is regression. If the previous techniques don’t work, a hypnotherapist can use this technique. With regression, you go back to the moment when the fear of the dentist first arose—the moment when that person’s belief took root, causing them to suddenly become afraid of the dentist.

Oddly enough, then, this doesn't always have to be a fearful moment at the dentist. Sometimes fear of the dentist is a symptom of something else, such as a disturbed relationship. Through regression therapy, you can find out what is blocking the patient from going to the dentist. Then you can give tools to deal with that moment differently so that the person is no longer anxious about the dentist.

Helping others who are afraid of the dentist

Are you a dentist or a beginner (or even an advanced) hypnotherapist who wants to help people overcome their fear of the dentist? Then check out the courses, events, and webinars offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands for more information.

Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:

Sources:

http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/features/dont-fear-the-dentist