Can’t Brain

My teeth are bad, and there’s such a long history of me going to the dentist like a good little pigeon and getting my maintenance and my fluoride and all of that stuff… But my teeth are fragile and they just break anyway. They crumble. Then I have to go back and get more dental work. I have spoken soooo much on my dental fears, my dental anxieties, and some of my dental experiences. But no, not all of them. Some really heinous things have happened to me at the dentist, we all agree. Because of this I’m just as bad about going to the dentist as I am about going to the doctor, actually I’m probably worse. Pretty much if I need medical care of any type there’s a better chance I’ll not go until I absolutely have to rather than be proactive. I just hate it, and I get so crippled by it.

I broke a toof. I should say- a toof crumbled? I had something similar happen with another tooth back in August or so and it took me a while to get in to see a dentist because I was also having problems with my J tube. On top of that though, that toof just didn’t feel the same. The pieces that crumbled off seemed to be smaller. My tooth right now? I have throbbing and pain in my actual cheek. I mean, my pain tolerance is fabulous so the pain itself isn’t what’s bothering me. I’m not sitting around taking ibuprofen or putting an ice pack on it or freaking out unable to think because I’m in so much pain. It’s just that. It shouldn’t throb. Like, it shouldn’t. And I just had a similar problem back a couple of months ago. And that tooth was so bad they had to remove it. That actually went really bad. I didn’t do a follow-up post because I wound up getting complications that I didn’t want to talk about. 🙁 And so now we’re not comfortable going back to that dentist and we need to find a new one. Just the thought of going has me unable to see straight. Like, I can’t even think and I have no idea how much sense this is making.

I already have an appointment to see about TPN on Monday (I’ll have gone to that by the time this publishes) and to be honest I spent today on again off again having anxiety over that because just being in a hospital even for any kind of normal appointment is terrifying for me. Like it’s scary because so many horrendous things have happened to me there. I just hate going to the hospital. Now I have to track down a new dentist to see if the tooth is salvageable or if it’s too late? I just. Hate? Like. It’s too much.

I got upstairs to take my tubbie and I just kept sitting there in the bath not even thinking. Master Pravus would keep redirecting me. “Kitty, you have to wash your eyes now.” “Oh. Right.” And I’d get so distracted and zone off thinking about having to go to the dentist. It’s absolutely crippling for me.

“What is it? Are you worried about.. When? Or the procedure itself? Or the tooth? Or does it hurt?”

“I just can’t stop thinking about how terrible it always is, and I’m scared that it won’t be okay.”

And I don’t know how we got through the tubbie, but we did. And I got back into bed. I’m trying to just focus on things one at a time. Because if I don’t have a reason to go to the dentist, I don’t think about it. And if I don’t have a reason to go to the hospital, I won’t think about it. But if I have to go, or it’s coming up soon then I can’t stop. It’s so hard. I don’t want to think about it but it’s so hard. And right now, it’s really really hard. And I can’t stop thinking about it.