Fear of Dentists Can Hurt Health

Fear of Dentists Can Hurt Health video

Those Americans who avoid going to the dentist for years due to their extreme dental phobia may be setting themselves up for potentially life-threatening health problems.

As dental decay advances and gums deteriorate unchecked, bacteria may start to proliferate and get into the bloodstream, eventually causing damage to the heart and other areas of the body, doctors say.

Dental phobia is a real psychological disorder that can range widely in severity, according to Raphael Rose, an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). People with truly extreme cases can only receive dental care if they go through a course of psychotherapy.

But dentists are being trained to overcome patients' phobia. Most fundamental is building a strong relationship of trust between the practitioner and the patient.

In addition to strong relationships, UCLA psychologists and dentists say patients can overcome cases of dental phobia with treatment and coping skills. One dentist, Ronald Mito, who is a professor of clinical dentistry and associate dean of clinical dental sciences at the UCLA School of Dentistry, established the UCLA Dental Fear and Anxiety Center in the mid-1980s. It had to be closed, unfortunately, due to his increasing administrative responsibilities. Mito said he would help dental phobic patients by having them rank aspects of a dental visit, creating a dental fear hierarchy. He would then expose patients to increasingly fearful situations so they could learn to cope with their condition.

Psychiatrists, too, can ameliorate patients' fears. If, for example, a person has a morbid aversion to receiving injections, the therapist can let him see and handle large needles. Patients can also be taught to maintain a positive inner dialogue, or to practice deep, slow breathing.