Do You Have a Dental Phobia?

The first step to getting over any phobia or anxiety is to acknowledge that it exists in the first place. If you are avoiding the dentist there’s a good chance you have some level of dental anxiety.

Here are some of the most common reasons for dental phobias:

• Childhood dental experience: the most formative dental memories are created during childhood years.
• Painful dental experience: The mouth is one of the most heavily nervous areas in the body.
• Dental related poor self-esteem: Some people fear going to the dentist because they feel embarrassed due to their mouth. This may be due to aesthetic problems and embarrassment with teeth, bad breath, gag reflexes, or chronic pain.2

All of these conditions can cause a general fear of people looking at or being close to your mouth, which of course, is the very nature of dental treatment itself.