Yay Fillings.... And hell at the dentist...

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I take it that you are lucky enough to have good insurance to cover tooth colored fillings. I am stuck with horrible insurance and have to get the metal(mercury mix) fillings, except for the front 6 top and bottom teeth. I have fillings on every tooth of mine. Right now, I am getting caps on my teeth(1 a year) becasue that is all I can afford(insurnace wont' pay for them. I have 3 done so far, which means that in 25 years, I will have all of my teeth capped. So when I am, lets see..., 59, I will have a nice set of teeth and no more mercury poisoning

Last edited by FrogGirl on 24 Jan 2009, 7:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

also, have you tried nitrous oxide(laughing gas?) It is wonderful. My insurance doesn't cover it, but my dentist knows that I couldn't sit through my appt. without it. so he doesn't charge me for it.
I have on sunglasses, listen to my favorite music on earphones, and with the nitrious oxide, I don't really care what he does to my teeth. If your anxiety is too much, the dentist can also order you a seditive to take before your appt. A mix of all options REALLY works. I had to do it that way when I needed two wisdom teeth pulled.

I am pretty sure all dental work in Canada is through private clinics. I'm not certain, but it would be a good guess, the government does not give any dental coverage as far as I know, but most group insuramce plans cover most of the dental cost... One filling cost me as much as a meal at mcdonalds thanks to the insurance I'm covered under.

I don't need to be sedated fortunatly, and laughing gas, never had it ever. This dentist only uses the tooth coloured fillings. Before getting the anestethic through the needle they put a cream on where they will give me the needle that numbs it so I barely feel the needle (why don't they use that when they take blood samples at the doctor's or hospital???) I really like that dentist, compared to the one that originally told me I needed fillings. The one that told me I had cavities said they were so minor he could do it without anestetic, no f***** way I was going to do that. So I went for 2 years needing fillings... Found out I needed 12 when I went to this dentist. I am glad I am getting them though. with each one I get eating is becoming easier. Now I just wish the appointment would have been long enough that I could have gotten a couple more done. Plus sedating me for a filling would be horrible... I have lung damage and cough horribly a couple times a day to get the phlegm out of my lungs, if I were sedated, I might cough and cause the drill to do some crazy damage in my mouth. I have another appointment next weekend, and I might have to cancel if things don't work out for transportation.

Has anyone ever had a root canal done where the cap later came off? I have, and it is one of the molar teeth. This happened months ago, but I am leery about going back to the dentist to replace it back on, as I am afraid it will just come off again.

I don't want to have the molar yanked either.

If there's one sound I hate above all others it is the sound of the dentist's drill.

Inside my mouth. Inside my skull. Even with no nerve-pain from the drilling sites, that godawful high-pitched whine is torturous. When I was a kid they had a name for it, Mister Motorcycle.

As an adult I can tolerate most medical procedures with equanimity, but as a kid I was absolutely beside myself with terror.

i do declare FrogGirl, we have very similar approaches.
a few weeks ago whilst on nitrous oxide for root canal therapy - i worked out what genius actually entailed.
the sunglasses are good to.

Auto-hypnosis did the trick for me.

I've had less problems than most people I know with anything medical. Dentist? No problem. Needles? No problem. I donate platelets and am fascinated to watch the needle go in. But aim that needle at my gums...

Bona fide, no one can figure out where it came from, all-out phobia. My only phobia as far as I know.

Used to have dentists drill without the novocaine. The pain of the drill was nothing compared to the terror of that needle in my gums. It's not even fear that the shot will hurt - just the idea of the thing. When I reached a point that I absolutely had to get numbed up, I was lucky enough to live close to a psychologist/hypnotherapist who specializes in dental phobias. Even he had never heard of one this specific!

Anyway, on the third appointment they did a root canal with no anesthetic. I numbed it myself through the hypnosis. On another appointment, I missed the cue that they had turned off the laughing gas and had me on oxygen. The hypnosis was so deep, I couldn't tell I was no longer under the influence of the gas. That's how powerful it is.

I do get numbed up now, but have my whole routine (as one dentist puts it, "I'll give you a few minutes to get in the mood"). Specific music, and an array of relaxing, take-a-trip-to-Planet-Jo images.

OMG - we Americans can only dream!

And the poster who suggested early in this thread that you go to a hospital where you can get better anesthesia? I thought that had to be a joke until I noticed the poster is from the UK.

Fast forward many years and I'm broke with no insurance. I now get my dental and general medical done in Mexico. Only downside; no laughing gas (not everyone likes it - I think it's the best legal high on the planet). But I've refined my Planet-Jo routine enough to not need the gas anymore.

Finally, my Mexican dentist has given me advice on preventative procedures and a whole other way of brushing that addresses my not-too-common gum disease (namely; no up-and-down, which pushes the debris back into the gums, but sweeping motions away from the gums). It's kept me out of the dental chair for a few years now. Why would my American dentists not tell me there's a preventative procedure? I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the prevention costs 1/3 as much as the inevitable root canal.

Anyway, consider a good hypnotherapist. For me, we found no way to erase the phobia, but rather I work around it so Anxiety-Jo isn't in the room when they give me the shot. It's work, but it works great - and I've applied it to lots of other elements of my life as well.

Good luck!


- Jo

I live in the US. I don't know what kind of insurance you have in Canada. Here, those that qualify for low income state insurance(Medicaid) we have a list of providers to choose from. They have rediculous rules and regulations on what they will pay for and what they won't pay for. I guess my state doesn't mind poisoning the poor and those on disability with mercury. When I had a private insurance, it paid for the tooth colored fillings, which was great! No one could tell that i had a million fillings. On top of the 3 caps(tooth colored) I also have 4 crowns(metal)caps. I hate to smile and show my teeth, becasue people can see the metal on my back teeth. uggg!

Same here. it is one of the most torcherous sound. I equate it to worse that scratching fingernails on the chalkboard. My anxiety goes through the roof. When I am listening to the music AND with the nitrous oxide, I don't hear the drill at all. Without the nitrous oxide, I and still hear the drill loud and clear even with the music.

they require the glasses over your eyes so that they don't injure them with flying metal filling pieces,etc. I like the dark sunglasses becasue I don't feel like I am stareing at the dentist(difficulty with eye contact. makes me even more nervous).

My dad is self employed under Sun Life, and the group insurance they have pays for most of my stuff, simply because of my age and that my primary residence is with him right now. Unfortunatly I will have a much harder time when his insurance no longer covers me when I move out completely... Which my parents are making me do when I am done university... I cannot live on my own. I live in university residence and the only thing that keeps me sane is my two roommates, who I hate so very much. The only good they are is that it gives me some social contact where I live. When I have to move out, I will refuse unless I have someone else to move in with... *crosses fingers and prays for a girlfriend of which I will life till death with*

What's that one millie? is it the "Howard" one where you have a dangerous condition that is also affected by dental health you get money to spend on dentistry or something? How does it work?

They always seem to be on the brink of scrapping that since Labor came in, I know there's been a lot of money allocated for public dental work here, but one MP is holding it up over some other power play.

I'm in TAS.

Getting a tooth drilled with freezing is bad enough, but what's even worse is when they don't give you quite enough freezing so that you can still feel the drill going into your tooth. That is maddening in a way nothing else is, the sensation of not-quite-enough-freezing. It's worse than having an inner-ear itch that you can't scratch.

very true!
I'm really really bad when it comes to dental hygene.. then when it comes for a check up, I'm manicly brushing away spending about 10 minutes on my teeth... stupidly thinking that just by brushing them any fillings will miraculously disappear!

I never used to brush as a kid and I was lucky that I never ever needed a filling til I was 13 years old.... I had to have a root canal a year or so ago... awful... though actually, I'd have to say oddly enough, a root canal hurts less than a normal filling. The worse treatment I ever had was when I had an absess and I needed my tooth removed... I've never been in so much agony in all my life... never again.. I'd rather die than have dental treatment and I get huge anxiety when it comes to going to the dentist.

I remember when I developed the absess and I was in so much pain, so I went to the doctors to get anti-biotics and it cleared up.. the doctor told me I need to see a dentist right away.. but I never went.... the absess went after the anti-biotics so I thought great.. I can get on with life.... 6 months later, the absess returned and this time, anti-biotics did not work, so I had to go.. got it xrayed and the dentist said it has to come out... I remember I didn't even sleep for 2 days because I was that scared.. I just spent all night researching dental care.

I hate all the stuff in my mouth... I hate the way my mouth goes so unbelievably dry.. I hate it... I hate the drill.. it feels like someone drilling into my head... I feel sick...I feel sick at the chips of tooth going down my throat.. It reminds me of an illusion I used to get as a kid when I was ill and my teeth would go soft and I'd have to keep spitting because I thought I was swallowing them.. horrible.