Autistic and Afraid of the Dentist

The title says it all, really.

As a kid, I was always really anxious about going to the dentist. I mean, it’s a person poking around inside your mouth with sharp instruments and criticising you while you’re completely unable to respond, clench your teeth, or even swallow. If that isn’t a nightmare, I don’t know what is. It was always a traumatic experience that ended in tears. So – of course – I needed braces and in order to get braces, I had to have dental surgery to remove two teeth and attach a little chain to another to gradually pull it into it’s correct place. That was attached to the braces, which was already a painful experience in itself. It’s also worth pointing out that during that surgery, another tooth was damaged and I’ve had trouble with it ever since. I’d stress about the next appointment for months and every check up was a distressing, exhausting ordeal. So, with all of that, I was pretty anti-dentist.

The Autism diagnosis changed things: people started to understand why it was such a big deal for me and new options became available. At the time, I’d been seeing a friend of my Mum’s who was a dentist and going to her practice, just to try and get used to the whole thing. But, as she worked privately, it really wasn’t a long-term plan and I was dreading the moment we’d have to find a new person and start all over again. But when we told her about the diagnosis, she told us about a specialist dental clinic, one that deals with all sorts of disabilities, and said that she would refer me.

Going to this place was an entirely different experience for me. The dentist and dental nurse were absolutely lovely and I’ve had the two of them ever since the first appointment. It never feels rushed and in that first appointment, we spent most of it talking, some about my dental history but mostly about me: my music, my pets, and so on. I almost forgot that I was at the dentist. At the end, she spent about a minute looking at my teeth (with only the mirror and nothing pointy) and then we were done. It had been okay; I could relax.

Over the following appointments, we took baby steps. She introduced me to all the instruments and let me touch them so I knew what they’d feel like. Then she’d use them on my teeth, one by one, explaining what she was doing and giving me lots of opportunities to stop. It was such a big deal to have people listen to my anxieties and take me seriously. I was and I am so grateful to them.

It’s been slow going with many freak outs along the way. The need for a filling threw a spanner in the works because I really wasn’t ready for all of that. But the crisis was averted when they referred me for a general anaesthetic – just as well as I ended up needing a tooth removed. Obviously, general anaesthetics aren’t a long-term solution to dentist anxiety but given the progress I’d been making, we all decided that it was the right choice. And once that was over, we got back on track.

I’ve been going there for two and a half years now and my appointment last week was definitely a milestone. I let the dentist clean and polish all of my teeth all in one go; no breaks, no anaesthesia, no nothing. It was all me. That is HUGE! I haven’t been able to do that in years and apart from the three-hour nap I needed afterwards, I feel pretty good about it. It wasn’t fun but my anxiety didn’t get to an unmanageable level and I got through it; I’m really proud of that. Really, really proud.

There’s a long way left to go but it actually feels like, one day, I’ll get to a place where I can go to the dentist and have a filling and it not be that big of a deal. Imagine that?! What a thought! I am so, so grateful to my dentist and dental nurse for taking such good care of me.

Anyway, I just wanted to make this post because I know that there are a lot of people – with Autism, with mental health problems – who really struggle with going to the dentist in the same way I do, and this route isn’t a well known one. But there are options other than just forcing yourself to go. So, if the dentist is a problem for you, please talk to your dentist, your doctor, and consult google. It shouldn’t be so hard and it doesn’t have to be.