I'm afraid of going to dentist

Question

I've a cavity in a tooth. It's very small but it seems that it's deep because I feel pain when I eat sugar on this tooth or when I do much stress for chewing.

I've heard that refilling a cavity is a painful process. That's why I don't wanna go to a doctor. I'll brush my teeth regularly and increase calcium intake trying to prevent more damage.. Will this work?

For me, it's better to remove the entire tooth (if it becomes too bad) than refilling it because that's less painful. Am I making the right decision?

Thanks a lot,

Answer 1

When you go to the dentist the first thing she will do is not to fix that cavity, but an inspection of your teeth. This will give you a chance to meet and talk to the dentist before anything gets serious and you can ask all the questions you want.

The truth about the pain is, filling cavities used to be extremely painful in the long gone days before anaesthetics were invented. These days you get a jab, the part of your mouth with the sick tooth will go numb and you will not feel a thing during the treatment. Even after the anaesthetic wears off there won't be any pain as there is only pain during the cleaning of the cavity but it stops right after the tools are removed from the tooth, this is where teeth are different to flesh wounds.

On the other hand, if you wait too long you will be in for a lot of pain. From your description I would think that your teeth are overall rather healthy. A healthy tooth can be very sensitive even with a small hole that is not very deep. This means there is a lot of potential for the pain to become worse. At some point it will become permanent. This can happen suddenly. You may wake up in the middle of the night and will be in pure pain, as if you had a glowing hot iron in your mouth and you can't get rid of it. Also there will be no one close by to give you any real help (like a dentist could).

So, if you think going to the dentist is scary, not going is a lot scarier.

How do I know all this? From experience. From my mothers side I inherited teeth that are prone to cavities so I had regular treatments starting with my milk teeth. The only dentist in the area believed in treating children without anaesthetics so they would remember the pain and look better after their teeth. This was forty years ago and any dentist with this kind of attitude today would not have their license for very long (or so I hope). This left me scared of dentists too and as an adult I didn't go for a couple of years, until one of my teeth became so sore as I described above. The pain was a lot worse than getting treated even without anaesthetics and there was no end to it.

Today I am more scared of not going. Because of the condition of my teeth there was a time where I have been more frequently to the dentist than to the hairdresser and these days, having been to sane dentists ever since, I am not scared of going at all.

Answer 2

Dental Student here, I highly recommend that you go see the dentist. First if the cavity gets into the pulp, you will need Root Canal Therapy to save that tooth, plus a core, and crown. Which is expensive. If you get it treated early, a filling may be all you need. A third possibility is getting the tooth extracted and getting an implant, but that is expensive. Using the proper toothpaste can in fact help arrest the decay, but the decay that is already present is there to stay. Prevident 5000 which is high in fluoride and MI paste which is high in calcium and phosphate ions can help remineralize the tooth and make it "stronger." Regular cleanings are important, because they will clean your teeth and put fluoride varnish on which helps strengthen your teeth, also chewing gum with xylitol will help stimulate saliva which will help your teeth and keep the bacteria count to a minimum.