What keeps you from visiting the dentist?
Is it Time? Money? Anxiety? Denial?
“I don’t have the time.”
Time is fleeting. It is one of the few things that once lost, is not recoverable. Not investing time in your oral health will inevitably cost more time, money and anguish in the long run. How do you want to spend the last decades of your life? Playing catch up with your health, or catching up with your grandkids or friends on the golf course? The choice is yours. What do you value and prioritize in your life? We often don’t appreciate what we have until it’s gone. Ask anyone who currently wears a denture if they wish they had their natural teeth to chew with.
“Dentistry is too expensive.”
There’s no doubt that restorative dentistry can be costly, but routine maintenance and early detection of dental problems saves patients money, time, and tooth structure over a lifetime. An early detected cavity may require a conservative filling, but if neglected, that cavity may grow and require root canal treatment and a crown, or an extraction. Extractions are relatively cheap, but the loss of just one tooth can compromises the whole chewing system and accelerates its demise. Get stabilized and move healthily forward. Especially considering our current economic climate, we are offering several flexible, financial options in our office to eliminate $ as a primary deterrent to pursuing dental health.
“Dentistry is painful/stressful.”
Have you had a negative dental experience? Has your parents’ fears of dentistry been transmitted to you? Are you transmitting those same fears to your kids? There’s an ongoing dilemma that occurs with many dental phobic patients: they fear the dentist so they don’t see a dentist routinely and thus don’t benefit from early detection. Instead, their problems eventually become painful emergencies which they then relate to the dental visit. This traumatic experience then reinforces their dental phobia. They never experience the health-centered, positive side of dental care-
Prevention + Routine maintenance + Early Detection =Conservative, Pain-free Treatments or No Treatment at all
Dental Anxiety is very prevalent. In our office, we want to get to the bottom of our patient’s fears so that we can best address them. Sometimes it requires taking “baby steps”, offering shorter appointments, prescribing anti-anxiety medications, or working with an anesthesiologist. It starts with creating a calm, caring culture and earning the trust of the patient. You owe it to yourself to get the care you need in a place where you can feel safe, secure and cared for.
“My teeth/gums are a mess but it’s just easier to not deal with it” or
“Why see a dentist?... nothing is bothering me.”
Sometimes we choose not to deal with a problem because we think it is easier than confronting it. If you have been told you have a dental issue and have been ignoring it, I assure you it still exists. Many people use “pain” as the final motivator for pursuing dental treatment. Unfortunately, such a mentality leads to more extensive, more expensive, emergency-level care. In its early, more treatable condition, periodontal disease is void of symptoms. Our office prides itself on providing you with the objective information about your condition and letting you decide a course of action. Are you ready to hear the truth and get educated about your state of oral health or would you rather be in the dark?
Dr Ken Schweifler is a Dentist in Los Altos.
