What Are the Causes of Dental Phobia?

According to statistics, approximately 80% of the American struggle with some sort of dental phobia, or dental fear as it is also called.

Out of these, 10% to 15% struggle with the most extreme form of phobia, where the patient cannot even accept the sight of a dentist with his mask and gloves on.

This is one of the reasons why there are so many people who rather choose to live with an ongoing throbbing dental pain, rather than going to the dentist.

However, this fact will only lead to worsen their dental complications, and by the time they must visit the dentist they already struggle with extremely severe dental health problems.

It is said that dental phobia is mainly born from the fact that an individual had a traumatic experience at the dentist’s in the past.

This dental experience may have been traumatic because of the tools the dentist had to use which scared the patient, because of the unpleasant behavior of the staff at the practice, because of the level of dental pain felt, and many other such influencing factors.

Some patients simply refuse to go to the dentist, because they consider them threatening individuals. There are many causes of dental phobia; some of them even extremely unbelievable.

Then, some people are extremely naive. They listen to horror stories told by other friends/family member/colleagues regarding their painful and shocking experience at the dentist.

This is enough in order to make them want to avoid a dental clinic for the rest of their life. What is true for one patient might not be the same true for the other one, and this is why it is extremely important to build your own opinion about a dentist, a dental procedure or a clinic.

Listening to what other people have to say will only confuse you, and if you already struggle with some sort of dental phobia, it is better not to listen to other people’s experiences.

Sometimes, people fear the dentist even if they have been wronged anywhere else in the medical field. They simply cannot trust any kind of doctor anymore, so they will refuse to go for regular checkups, not to speak of more complicated dental treatments, such as a root canal intervention.

The best dental professionals generally recognize in an instant if the patient is scared. Then, they will try to make the patient comfortable, and the doctor will try to gain the trust of the patient.

The psychological factor is the most important in all kinds of phobias, so a good specialist will always know how to behave with the patient who struggles with a dental phobia.

Every procedure will be explained in as much detail as possible, and the dentist will make sure that the patient truly understands the importance of going through the respective medical procedure.

For extremely anxious patients, there is the sedation procedure available, which helps keeping the patient relaxed and comfortable all throughout the dental intervention.