Hating dentists comes naturally to many people. Some people hate dentists because they are Dentists, some think dentists are meant to be hated. A few hate them because others do so. But, an important aspect of this is why people hate the dentist. Being a dentist, I’m not gonna take the route of disagreeing with this and brand these people as phobic. There are genuine reasons for people to hate or be afraid of the dentist. Over the past month, I have asked a lot of people-online and offline for the exact reason why they hate the dentist. Now, I am accumulating the most common reasons and what I(as a dentist) think about them.
1. The Dentist’s attitude
Plenty of people hate the dentist for seemingly having a “mean” attitude. They are not friendly towards you. They give instructions with harsh voices and make you feel like a child. They tend to get under your skin with their arrogant attitude. When you complain of pain and discomfort, they disregard that and say you won’t be feeling any pain.
Sane Dentist says: I agree with the patient on this part. Dentists should have a nice and soft attitude towards the patient especially considering that most of them are anxious. Patients should be comforted and informed in detail regarding the procedure that is being done.Dentist’s tend to do this because some of them get irritated by some stubborn patients while some don’t see the reason to be afraid and get irritated when patients do not co-operate. These are no excuses though for the dentist to have a haughty attitude towards the dentist.
2. The drill
The drill instills fear in a lot of patients. The sheer sound of it is something similar to a drill machine and letting some one put that thing in your mouth is not in your comfort zone.
Sane Dentist says: There is not much a dentist could do if you are afraid of the conventional drill. You could opt to go for sedation dentistry or sleep dentistry as it is popularly known as. Sleep dentists use Intra oral or IV drugs to induce a relaxed state in a patient. If you have genuine reservations against the drill and do not want it used in your mouth, Laser dentistry and air abrasion dentistry are the latest fads in dental health.
Laser dentistry employs the use of laser instead of the conventional drill. Air abrasion or drill-less dentistry which does not cause vibration,sound,pressure or heat is also an option. Note that all dentists do not provide these services. They have to be trained for using these methods. Ask your dentist to clarify if he provides these services.
3. The clinic
Many people have found shortcomings with the clinic itself. They don’t like the look of it, or the sight of dental chair/instruments makes them feel nervous. A few people said they hate the smell of the dentist’s office.
Sane Dentist says: Well, you can’t change the dentist’s office in a significant way. Going more often to dental clinics may be just what you need to get rid of this apprehension. On the other hand, I have been to some clinics where the dentist takes a significant effort to make the clinic more comfortable. They do this by removing all dental pictures/charts from the office, playing soft music,good fragrance and making it more hospitable.
4. Pain
Pain is a significant genuine reason for a person to be afraid of the dentist. You might have never undergone a dental procedure, but hearing all those horror stories of pain can make you hate the dentist. You could also have a previous horror encounter with the dentist and hate them after that.
Sane Dentist says: Horror stories are present in any field. If 10,000 cars are on the road and one of them has an accident, every body starts talking about the accident.Nobody talks about the 9999 cars that traveled safely. Similarly, horror stories at the dental clinic doing the the fact that most of people are getting dental procedures done with out any problem. You should not get affected by such stories some of which are partly fiction. If you had a previous painful encounter, ask the dentist more about it. Seek his clarification on the issue. Honestly, some of these might be the fault of the dentist while some are not. Hence, it’s best to go for dentists with good credentials,experience and reputation.
5. The lesson
Preachy dentists can be quite a pain too. They ask you how you have been doing with your dental hygiene and immediately start scrutinizing you if you haven’t been good. They scold you for your bad habits and give you “the lesson”.
Sane Dentist says: Some dentists think that the only way they could get people to inculcate good dental habits is through hard talk. May be, its not the best approach as many people are likely not to listen.But, it does help a few people. You should change your attitude towards the dentist for this. Understand that he/she is trying to help you. I also do agree that some dentists can be overly repetitive and annoying in the way they go about “the lesson.”
What have your experiences been like with your dentist. What’s the reason for your apprehension/hatred/fear of the dentist?
I only mentioned the most common ones. I would love to hear more from readers on their specific issues and glad to answer any queries.
“I have written this post is for the competition on worlddental. Do check out their free dental care reports as well as the dental tourism section”
{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
“Sane Dentist says: There is not much a dentist could do if you are afraid of the conventional drill.” I disagree with this.
My dentist has a TV visible from the patient’s chair while upright, but not when the chair is tilted back. Also, it can’t be heard over the drill. So while the worst part of the visit is happening the tv only serves to distract his assistant while they are working in my mouth.
This last visit I asked him why he didn’t mount the thing so that I can see it while he’s working and pipe the audio into noise-canceling headphones so I don’t hear the drill. (In fact, he said that he had headphones, but the would only play music.)
He said my idea was a good one, but I doubt he’ll implement it. Giving the patient something to dominate the two main senses would go a long way towards making the ordeal easier. Can’t believe I’m the first one to think of this and wonder why this simple distraction technique hasn’t caught on.
Great post. I featured this as one of today’s three links on my Other Thought for the Day blog:
http://otherthoughtfortheday.blogspot.com/2010/04/04-13-dentists-go-er-done-thanks.html
All the best, Ted
In addition to “the clinic” I would also say “the staff” they can make or break a practice, if you’re hiring receptionists that are idiots or mean to patients, esp in this economy, it reflects bad on the dentist, makes me not want to go back so I don’t have to deal with those people.
I have taken my daughter who has fear of dentist to many dentists, I call ask if they deal with people who are afraid of dentists and they say yes, then after I take her in they are rude, foul and or scare her into crying and running out of the office, then they tell me I have to pay for the appointment!
You dont even want to know how many appointments I have paid for that I should not have. Dental schools need to do a psychological exam before letting these people in school! There should also be law to protect us from having to pay for these doctors who lie!
We found 1 dentist when she was 23 who gave her valium and it worked awsome. She made a second appointment and he had left and the new dentist scared her again? Now she is trying to find a dentist to give her valium, its only 2 pills before an appointment and she cannot find one who will give it to her?
Personally I go to Mexico, they are so nice, you get a hug when you walk in the door, and they have pills that dont make you high and take away all the pain after your appointment. I hope it settles down across the border so I can take my daughter to Mexico for dental treatment soon!
I don’t hate my dentist, I hate *going* to the dentist. I’ve never had a “bad” experience with my dentist but I have had significant pain (just for a few milliseconds but really nasty). For me it is most definitely about fear, like he’s going to drill into a nerve or some such thing.
Dentists are just people so they can have a bad day but being people my guess is, most have compassion and empathize with their patients most of the time — Those are the 9999 experiences.
Medical Doctors, on the other hand, are a completely different story. One can understand how so many turn into jerks with no bedside manner with all that they deal with. But in my experience very few of them consistently treat their patients with the respect and empathy they deserve.
So in contrasting these two, given that both professions can easily fall into apathetic views on their patients, I’d say dentists win. But I’m still more afraid of going to the dentist than I am of going to my GP. Go figure.
Thanks for the post SD!
I found this article on delicious.com
Nice read.
The main reason why I don’t like going to the dentist’s is the pain. I’m not talking about horror stories. Just the normal pain of the normal drill : I hate it. Note that it’s not the dentist’s fault ; he’s just doing his job and I’m not helding him as responsible for this uncomfortable sensation.
What is the difference between Saddam Hussain’s torture chair and Dentist chair?
You pay dentist money to get tortured.
I’ve gone to dentists for over 50 years, so I’ve seen the transition from extreme pain and fear to modern techniques that are much more patient-friendly. But I still dread forking over $300 or so every time I go in.
What I don’t like is the way that the dentist acts like you are unable to choose the care you want: (E.G. If you want to have all your teeth pulled so that you can get dentures and they argue with you saying that you should spend thousands to preserve the few teeth you have instead.
I liked Tom’s response. Thoughtful, well-written. He nailed it with “I don’t hate my dentist. I hate going…”
The threat of genuine pain is very real. That apprehension of pain is what creates so much anxiety. Out of the 5 points, only the fear of pain stood out as relevant. Needles-injections is not even mentioned.
Here’s a new post I made on this same topic – Top 10 Reasons People Hate Dentists
My dentist told my child that she could choke on her tooth for all I care…
All because, she had a lose tooth and she didn’t want it to come out that day (she had to sing later in the evening)
After the next appointment we are switching dentist!
Choke on her tooth? Loose primary teeth fall out given a little more time. What’s the rush? I rarely extract primary teeth because children can usually handle it by themselves.
Interesting…….. and valuable info. Lucky me I found your site by accident, I bookmarked it.
Pain stands the first place for me. But I should say my dentist’s attitude is really good. So didn’t any problems related to that.
Good thing that I like my dentist’s attitude. We always have a great time every time I have an appointment with her. She’s very cool and has a great sense of humor.
Most kids hate dentists because of the pain they felt after. If you’ve felt pain like that once, you NEVER want to feel it again. Every time you go, you feel it that threat of pain hanging over you like a hammer ready to slam down on you.
I fear alterations in my teeth. I have bad experiences with fillings too low, causing a slight change of the bite resulting in jaw pain. But the worst thing was that in trying to resolve this pain, I allowed the dentist to file off a tiny piece of another tooth. It not only worsened the pain, but it also turned out that after this, I couldn’t click my teeth together anymore in the way it felt just right for me. This caused sleepless nights for months and months, and loads of different tics. When I asked for psychological help to handle this behaviour, I was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome.
Of course the dental treatment didn’t cause TS, but it got me totally out of balance and worsened the symptoms. As for I never want to happen that again, I will probably dread any treatment during the rest of my life.
Good thing that I like my dentist’s attitude. We always have a great time every time I have an appointment with him. He’s very cool and has a great sense of humor.
I can understand that it’s natural for people to be afraid of pain and then it probably adds insult to injury to actually have to take the initiative to travel to the dentist’s office to expose themselves to the pain they’ve been dreading!
Thinking about the bill that comes afterward makes the whole experience even worse!
I agree with Miss Cellania that dental treatment has improved a lot over the past 50 years and the bill is my worst fear … so as Tom says ‘I don’t hate the dentist, I hate having to go’
Fran
I’m a dentist myself and reading your articles and some comments made me think about various ideas I could implement in my office. Thank you all!
Great article. With all the advancements in technology and procedures in dentistry like CEREC, LANAP, cone beam CT, etc which benefit the patient, maybe one day the dental profession will shed public perception it has now.
ohh goody! they sure look tasty, but I will try to avoid them If I were you, just watch this video about a very painful dentist experience : (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxr6tURCt9E
i dont hate the dentist i hate going to the dentist its just the look of that chair and those horrible needles
This is a great post! The dental industry is coming closer every year to rid of all these scares! Smaller needles, less intrusive procedures.
I don’t like the dentist because of the smell. Have you ever noticed that no matter what dentist you go to they all seem to smell the same? It makes me nauseous.
For me it’s when they put the needle in your mouth they don’t wait until it numb before they start. Another one is when the nurse take a x ray of your mouth they always cut me with the film and that makes me panic.
Millions of people hate the dentist (I’m one of the extreme who hate going to the dentist so much that I stopped going 12 years ago) for good reason. It’s not like these millions of people have an irrational fear. They have gone many times in most cases and have had bad experiences. I believe that consumers have not demanded enough from the dentistry field and have simply taken uncomfortable, anxiety-filled procedures as an inevitable part of having oral problems repaired. I, personally, have boycotted dentisty for well over decade now. I have paid the price with rotting teeth, but this has been less traumatic than even the best filling I have gotten. I’d simply rather have my oral health suffer than subject myself to the dental chair. My hope is that dentisty does not continue to make patients simply accept treatments as they are and that the industry makes more advancements in the coming years to make going to the dentist something that most people dread.
You know, I like to philosophise and recently i’ve been thinking we should give dentists a bit of a break.
The honest ones are just doing their jobs, its’ not their fault if the only treatment they can afford to use is slightly unpleasant, and everyone knows they need wages to survive like everyone else, what do you think if your boss complains about paying you for a days work “oh fine you don’t have to pay me, i’ll just give you my time for free from now on because i don’t need to pay bills”?
However I think they should be held responsible for some part of the fear. They began it from 50 years ago and somehow it hasn’t changed for some people over half a decade. I’m not asking that they become miracle workers but Points 1. and 4. feel very valid to me, if dentists worked toward these more they could become part of the solution not the problem.
And the money-grubbers who either neglect you from lack of money or scam you for unneccesary treatments should all be shot “Battle of the Somme” style
I think a reason why many people hate the dentist is because of a past unpleasant experience. It’s stuck in their head that going to a dentist, even a different one than what caused their pain, is going to be a repeat experience. I was traumatized in my childhood by a sadistic dentist. As a result of this I didn’t step foot in a dentist’s office for 43 years. I finally had to overcome my phobia because of constant mouth pain and seek out a dentist. I searched the phone book and the internet to find a dentist who catered to the anxious patient. I only called the ones that offered sedation dentistry. Oblivion is bliss.
Dentists should not be hated. They are the ones who take good care of our teeth. Maybe the reason why there are some people who hate dentists is because of a childhood trauma when they visited a dentist for tooth extraction. Or maybe just because they are afraid of dentists in general. But this should not be so. Dentists are our good friend and our teeth, too.
There is not much reason for a dentist to be hated, I think that it is just how one person may have been conditioned to the dentist. By that I mean whether a story and/or one bad experience can make a person hate the dentist. I am not totally sold on the Dentists attitude” section, maybe it has just been my luck, but most of my dentists have been very kind and did not talk in a mean demeanor. For one of the dentists I have been to, the soft, calm voice can be annoying. Using that kind of voice makes me feel as though I am a child even more than if I were given more of a stern talkin to. Personally the thing I dread about the dentist is having to find the time to go. I also am not very fond of the pain associated when the dental hygienist can sometimes miss the mandibular foramen or mental foramen for a numbing shot. Overall though, the dentist can be very inviting place to go to.
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