My Shiny Teeth & Me

Dental Anxiety at Its Finest

I have so much anxiety about my teeth. True, proper dread and anxiety with a huge dose of avoidance.

I brush my teeth every day, got better about flossing each night and even between meals sometimes, and yet I feel like I have this terrible secret hiding in my mouth.

Throughout my childhood and teen years, I had many cavities. To the point where a couple of dental assistants shamed me about it. And as I got older, I still got cavities. It felt like every time I visited the dentist, I got bad news.

Now if this was just about cavities, that would be one thing. The true trauma around my teeth comes from my molars.

When I was 17, I had my wisdom teeth taken out. They were impacted and my mouth was too small to accommodate them. I had never been put under anesthesia before, and I sobbed during the oral surgeon consultation. I didn’t want to do it, but when the day came I was solemn and stoic.

I came through just fine, went to sleep with no recollection of closing my eyes, and I made it through to the other side.

Time passed, got a few cavities filled here and there, and by the time I was 20 I had a waking nightmare. Now, because my mouth was too small for all my adult teeth and my wisdom teeth were jammed up by my molars—specifically my second molars—were pushed out of line with the rest of my teeth.

My bottom molars are slightly tilted in but the upper ones are grossly tilted out and away—basically sticking out. Food would sometimes get stuck behind them. So one day, as I sat in the Starbucks parking lot, I reached behind my left janky ass molar to get whatever was stuck up there unstuck—only to have a piece of my tooth break off.

Come to find out, it was actually a piece of filling that broke off, but it was the stuff of nightmares to have a hunk of tooth crumble in your mouth.

After a trip to the dentist, the verdict came back that the tooth needed to be pulled. I elected to be sedated again because I’m a huge baby, though I went in much more relaxed this time. I even asked the oral surgeon if I could keep the pulled tooth when he was done.

I woke up a little bit later to a bloody zip lock bag shoved in my face, and I took my prize with me as I left the office.

Before I went in for this extraction, I asked him to take both upper second molars since I do not use either to actually chew and let it be a preventative measure.

Well, at the time, the right molar was still “healthy” and he refused to take a healthy tooth out.

Not six months later at my next cleaning, that so-called healthy tooth needed a filling.

Probably around 2018 or 2019, my dentist (who I had seen most of my life) recommended the other three molars be removed. They were decalcifying, they aren’t a part of my bite, and they just weren’t saving in the long run.

We were also watching several “blemishes” on my teeth that could turn into cavities at that time. And I decided to put off the extraction for a little while longer. They were bothering me just yet.

In 2019, I had my best experience at the dentist yet. My cleaning was quick, the dental assistant said my teeth looked the best she’d seen them, and I booked my next cleaning for April of 2020.

The cleaning would never come. It was cancelled but never rescheduled. During lockdown, I don’t think I was doing super great with my teeth or just not paying close attention. I let my routine get a little more lax.

By the fall of 2021, my jaw started to hurt. A lot. I aged out of my mom’s dental insurance and realized it had been two years since I had even been seen by a dentist. So I booked an appointment at a new office (my OG dentist sold her practice) and after new x-rays and an exam I was told I had eleven small cavities.

Eleven.

I was horrified and ashamed. On top of that, these other molars really needed to be extracted.

I cried to my mom like any good grown woman in her late 20s, and she told me about all her cavities—even the small ones in her front teeth like mine. She told me how it made her feel trashy at the time.

It boiled down to genetics and getting the short end of the stick. I did feel a little better after talking with her, realizing I’m not alone or bad or that this means anything about me.

But today, I am stressed as fuck. All those little cavities have been filled, my next cleaning is coming up in a couple of weeks, and my upper left molar in all its janky-ness…is bothering me. I’ve been feeling it rub up against my cheek for a few weeks now. It doesn’t necessarily hurt, but I am also pretty accustomed to discomfort from my sinuses and jaw-clenching so who knows.

I think the gumline is receding around that tooth and I am fucking terrified.

I know there is a solution. I know I need about $2000 to get everything taken care of (because as much as I don’t want to, I would rather get everything taken out at once while I’m sedated). I know I will be fine.

But I hate it. I really fucking hate it.

I also know that I’m not special. I keep thinking about that motif from Inventing Anna, when Vivian Kent is getting ready to give birth she reminds herself and her husband that she’s not special. Women give birth in fields every day, and she is not the first or the only person to birth a baby.

And I keep reminding myself other people have dental problems, just like me or maybe worse. It’s just not talked about very often. I haven’t been super vocal about it outside of a few friends because I’m scared and ashamed.

I am not special. I am not the only person to ever need teeth extracted or have dental problems. It doesn’t mean anything about me.

I still hate it. I’m still terrified and anxious and mad and worried. I just wanted to talk about it because I wish I had more people to commiserate with and know I’m not special and be empowered by that.

— river