Scared of the dentist? Here’s how to cope

Don’t skip appointments and risk your oral health . Try these strategies instead. For Hope Alcocer, the diagnosis was grim: 11 cavities .

Inflamed gums. A tooth in need of a root canal. As the list of problems grew, so did her feelings of shame and fear.

Shame that she had waited more than a decade to seek care. And fear because she could no longer avoid the dentist. Her anxiety stemmed from an experience as a teenager, when her dentist brushed aside her concerns that she wasn’t numb enough before filling a cavity.

The pain made her want to jump out of the chair. “My pain was an 11 out of 10,” she said. “That’s how much it hurt.

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