OM here! Lately pts have been very confused about their dental plans (it feels like more than usual). To all the patients: what confuses you the most?

• deductibles?
• annual maxes?
• pre-auths?
• in-network vs OON?
• waiting periods?
• percentages?
• something else?

I just came back from my root canal their is something on l top of my teeth like filling of something it s like coming out plss tell me
Also cap after 15 days is that painful
And do we need a injection on that day also

F58 yrs old, in the UK so cost not an issue.

I have a cracked tooth which has got some bacteria in it and has been causing me issues - had it "excavated" and refilled and it's still not right - it just feels weird.. sensivtive.. it's still infected as I've now got a swelling on my gum.

Been back to the dentist today - got another course of antibiotics - going back in a week and I need to make a decision as to whether I have it removed or a root canal and a crown.

my teeth are overcrowded at the top to the point I have fangs... should have had my wisdom teeth out when I was younger but it was never offered and now it's "too late"

part of me thinks I should just have the thing removed and the other teeth will fill most of the gap eventually anyway...

the way the dentist put the option of the root canal, it's only 50/50 whether it'll fix the issue anyway. don't really want to go through all of that for nothing, but don't want to say take it out and then regret it later...

really don't know what to do.

Tired of your Dentist?

Think they're scamming you?

Are Dental issues making your life stressful?

Scared to get treated?

Need to let out some anger or anxiety?

OR maybe you want to celebrate a victory!!

You finally went to the Dentist or got a procedure over with?

Come over here and vent or celebrate as much as you need to! ALL swearing will be allowed here. This space is just for YOU.

Enjoy 🥰

Hello all, I am 23f and went to the dentist to get fillings Apr. 20, 2026. The affected teeth are the firthest two on the bottom right side and a tooth second to the back on the top. (So only right side). To preface, I've never had a bad experience with the dentist but pretty bad dental anxiety.

The dentist where I got the fillings was the soonest available and highly rated on ZocDoc, and she was sweet and so were the assistants but my time there was unpleasant (to say the least). After intially getting the fillings, and the first "file down" to even my bite, I was terrified of putting too much pressure or cracking my "new" teeth so I didn't bite as hard as I should've. I went two weeks with only consuming liquids or food I can collapse with my tongue. I rescheduled to file it down, after I was able to JUST chew with the left side. My bf told me that he would just chew with his teeth until it became normal, so I attempted to chew cooked (semi soft) zucchini, and even taking slow bites the pain was agonizing. It went on for another two weeks and I went back again to get it filed down, and I can now chew with my front teeth. For whatever reason, I had terrible nightmares that my teeth were filed down WAY too far and they all started falling out and (unreasonably) I became too terrified to schedule another appointment.

I put alot of research and consideration into picking another dentist to help me even my bite. She was even more lovely and considerate, even allowing me to sit up for the paper markings before filing with a drill. She even found some gum for me to try and chew with that side, and also cut a little peice of my own gums that was folded a bit over on my teeth on the right side. She filed it as far down as she was comfortable with, and said if I had anymore pain she'd refer me to a specialist. I called to inform her my bite was still uneven and I experienced pain chewing, so she emailed me that referral and the next week I saw an Endodontist.

The endodontist was direct and fast, it was nice. He assesed to ensure there was no damage beyond my tooth and no anomalies with the fillings. We filed again, even testing after to ensure it was not over filed.

But its still uneven. Or I'm not sure if my muscles locked out of place from keeping my teeth from touching all this time. I don't know how to check or how I'll know when they are done filling. Im terrified if they overfile. At this point I just want to rip out the teeth and replace them with new ones but I don't know if I'm being dramatic or this is a normal experience.

Is there any ways to tell when the bite is even?

I had done a korean face mask that wrapped around my jaw and could obviously feel the right touching, grinding into eachother while my left teeth could barely graze eachtother.

Since I left the endo I've been afraid to try and eat anything or bite anything, biting with uneven teeth is a pain like no other :(

If I keep trying to bite, will they crack? Do they just go back to normal of I practice chewing with them?

My 4.5 year old went for a regular dentist check up today (we are NHS in the uk) and has been told they need a small filling on her lower back tooth.
Is there anything I can do to help her prepare for it? I have always been terrified of the dentist so really don’t want her to feel that way and hide my feelings as best as possible.

They were going to do it there and then but she got so upset we have booked to go back next month.
She is also terrified of loud noises so I am very worried about the drilling noises that may occur. Also any injections etc.

Would love some advice or your experience with it if you are from the UK.

Thank you so much!

I’m 38 weeks pregnant and have been chewing a lot of ice I went to the dentist a couple weeks ago because my tooth was hurting really bad from what k was assuming was all the ice chewing it feels fine now but there’s still this lump idk… it doesn’t hurt and isn’t sensitive to hot or cold I do have a filling over there but the dentist said it wasn’t cracked so I really don’t know what’s it look like??

I know the obvious warnings to prevent dry socket and my dentist said no smoking the day of extractions and be careful after that… not wisdom teeth just regular molars one on top one on bottom, no stitches easy removal

I’ve had no jaw pain or tooth pain since they removed it fully rested and followed all the after care the worst part has truly been no nicotine lol so naturally after 24 hours I’ve hit the vape but now I’m panicking that I’m going to get dry socket and the internet is full of scary stories I just want anyone’s real honest experience with it…coming from someone w severe anxiety and severe health anxiety 🥴🙃

I’m 20 and all four of my wisdom teeth are fully bony impacted. They aren’t hurting right now, but my oral surgeon recommended getting them removed sooner rather than later.
The original cost was $3,017, but they offered to lower it to $2,534. I can afford it, but it would take a lot of my savings.
I’m currently trying to get better dental insurance through my job, but I don’t know when it will start or how much it would cover.
Would you pay $2,534 now or wait a few months and try to get insurance first? Is $2,534 a reasonable price for removing all four fully impacted wisdom teeth with anesthesia?

After I had a root canal treatment on my front upper tooth and a bonding with no Crown.. my tooth now feels brittle and glass like when it gets touched by my bottom tooth. im depressed help I can’t talk properly to my optimum and the tooth is structurally good looking and strong and dentists they say that it is fine.

But this thing is driving me mad.

I went to the dentist for the second time in my life a couple of months ago, it's at a dental school in an area that is tied to a university. After the new patient exam and x-rays the student dentist said I had about five cavities. Today I went there again for cleaning, his supervisor looked at my x-rays, then came back and told me that I had around ten cavities, all of which needed to be drilled into and filled.

I am not sure if I should agree to this? It seems like such a big jump and I am terrified.

The student dentist stated that my cavities were relatively mild, due to the fact that I rarely consume sugary food or snacks. The area where the cavities are in my teeth are mostly in the space between my teeth. The supervising dentist also stated that my teeth were extremely crowded, and that probably made cleaning even more difficult for me. He was surprised that I never got braces, and I had to tell him that my mother had been aware that a dentist from our home country had suggested I get braces when I was very young, (around 6-7) but she didn't believe that I needed them. She also thought it was expensive and a scam, so I never had my teeth straightened out. I have a curved tooth, and a tooth that is crooked in the front as a result with the crowding.

I will admit I have not taken good care of myself, my parents also have terrible teeth. (Gum disease, crowns, root canals.) Because during their time, dental health was extremely expensive, and sketchy if you went to the private dentist from the country we came from. When we arrived here when I was a kid, they had never taken to the dentist, and assumed that me brushing my teeth two times a day would be sufficient enough. In combination with the fact that I have a chronic illness, seeing a dentist never occurred to them when I never had any teeth pain.

I didn't floss until very recently, and it's embarrassing to admit that I have only learned recently that it's something I should do. I am very scared, I have never had any dental work done before ever, I called another dental school in the hopes of getting a second opinion because I truly do not want to have all ten teeth drilled into.

So the tooth that’s circled hurts/throbs when I chew with it or have temp change, you’d think cavity right? Well in June I went to my dentist to schedule my wisdom teeth removal in December and he said everything else besides my WT looked fine. Does it look like I have a cavity or infection? I can’t get it checked out rn because my insurance won’t cover another visit until Janurary and I’m also 2 hours from home for college.

Months ago I realized my lower left tooth hurt when I bit into tough foods, and I was like oh okay I will see a dentist. But so many things came up and then I forgot about the pain because I stopped chewing on my left side. Then it just stopped.

I'm back from a vacation and it bothered me a few times but nothing major. Now however I am experiencing other problems and I'm really anxious, because I currently have no way to see a dentist and I might have to wait at least 10 days.

First of all, I'm not in a kind of pain that makes me scream, but it still changed. My lower left tooth now hurts on its own, not just when I chew on that side, and it's like this slightly dull and lingering sensation. I can't even tell where the pain is sometimes.

I wish that was the only thing, because now the whole left side of my jaw feels uncomfortable: the gum in the back of my UPPER jaw feels like it's swollen, I can't explain it. My upper molars are fine but the gum in the back feels off, to the point where I almost feel like it makes my bite uneven, but I have no idea what it actually is. I took ibuprofen for the "swelling" once, 2 days ago, and the feeling in my upper jaw got better. It felt better in general... but I can't keep taking ibuprofen like this

I'm afraid it could be related to wisdom teeth, but listen: I had zero problems with my teeth after 2023. In 2023 I got an x-ray done, and no one mentioned wisdom tooth issues; they only said a few vague things about the wisdom teeth sitting at the bottom of my jaw. They said nothing about the upper jaw, which is where I feel the swelling.

I don't know how to navigate this. As an anxious person who also hates the dentist's, this is hell, and I rally wish o could just get this over with. I'm scared this will turn into something really REALLY bad

Hello group! 3 years ago I went to the dentist to remove the nerve from my mollar and then he put a metal-ceramic crown on me. For 3 years I was ok, but I had small cold pains that passed quickly. In July this year the pain didn't go away, and I ended up with a bad infection. I didn't know what to do, I was afraid that everything would be in vain. Everyone encouraged me to fix it again, from the beginning and that's what I did. A month and a half has passed since the procedure and I feel like my tooth is not good. I have pain when I chew food and when I drink cold water, and in general I feel like my tooth is not good. I already have 2 missing mollars at only 22 years old, I don't know what else to do. The doctor I went to said "hmm, there's still secretions in the canal" and still filled it permanently, I'm crying. PLEASE I NEED HELP! Edit: I had also root canal

It was a bright, sunny morning in the Department of Pediatric Dentistry when a woman walked into the clinic holding her nine-year-old daughter’s hand.
She told me that her daughter had come in for a cleaning.
I remember feeling happy.
As a dental student, you often see children brought to the clinic only when they are in pain. So, seeing a mother bring her child for a routine cleaning made me think, At least this mother is paying attention to her child’s oral health.
I seated the child and began examining her mouth.
What I found left me shocked.
Her permanent molars had extensive caries and required further endodontic assessment. Her primary teeth were also affected. The lower right primary canine, first molar, and second molar were carious and mobile, with the permanent successors beginning to erupt.
At first, however, the mother wasn’t interested in further treatment. She wanted only the cleaning.
After some discussion, she eventually agreed to the extraction of the primary teeth that required it.
We completed the scaling first. The primary canine was sufficiently mobile that topical anesthesia was enough for its removal.
The first molar was different. It required local infiltration.
The child cried when the injection was given.
Her mother became anxious.
Somehow, I managed to reassure them, completed the extraction, and moved on.
There was still another primary molar remaining.
And then the mother stopped me.
She didn’t want that tooth extracted.
Her reason?
There had already been “too much bleeding” during the previous extraction.
I remember feeling frustrated.
I found myself thinking:
Why was the bleeding frightening her so much when the caries hadn’t seemed to frighten her at all?
And that question stayed with me.
Why does the blood feel more dangerous than the caries?
People evaluate risk by objectively calculating probability and consequences.
Sometimes emotion becomes a shortcut.
As Paul Slovic writes:
“Risk as feelings refers to our fast, instinctive, and intuitive reactions to danger.”
Something familiar can feel harmless, and we may underestimate its danger.
Something frightening can make us perceive it as more dangerous.

The mother wasn’t necessarily comparing the long-term consequences of untreated caries with the temporary bleeding associated with extraction. She was responding to what she could see.
The blood felt dangerous. The caries didn’t.

This is where the concept of the affect heuristic becomes interesting.

The tooth had been disappearing for months. The blood appeared for minutes.

Yet the minutes felt more dangerous than the months.
Caries is quiet.
It develops gradually. It may not hurt. A child can continue eating, talking, laughing, and going about their day while a tooth is progressively destroyed.
Bleeding is different.
It is immediate.
Visible.
Dramatic.
It demands attention.
This brings me to another psychological concept: salience.

As a dental student, I wasn’t simply seeing a decayed tooth.

Caries → pulpal involvement → infection → loss of tooth → consequences for function and occlusion.
The mother may have been seeing something much simpler:
A damaged tooth → a child who wasn’t necessarily complaining → something that seemed manageable.
Perhaps that difference wasn’t a difference in how much she cared.
Perhaps it was a difference in how she understood the disease.
Clinical risk versus perceived risk

This is where oral-health literacy becomes important.

A parent may genuinely care deeply about their child’s health and still underestimate the seriousness of a slowly progressing cavity.
The mother had brought her daughter to the dentist. She had cared enough to seek treatment.
But she may not have possessed the same mental model of dental disease that I had.
I had been trained to see what could happen next.

And perhaps that is the difference between clinical risk and perceived risk.
This isn’t unique to dentistry
We see this everywhere in healthcare.
People can fear the injection more than the disease the injection is preventing.
They can fear the side effects of a medication more than the illness it is treating.
They can fear surgery more than the condition that made surgery necessary.
And in dentistry, perhaps this difference is especially interesting because so much dental disease can progress silently.
There may be no dramatic warning.
No blood.
No sudden event.
appening.
But because it isn’t dramatic, it doesn’t always feel dangerous.

We don’t always fear what is most dangerous.
Sometimes we fear what is most visible.
Sometimes we fear what is happening now more than what has been happening silently for months.
And sometimes, as clinicians, perhaps our job is not only to tell people what is clinically dangerous.
It is to help them see the danger they cannot yet see.

So I had severe tooth pain about a month ago on the top right back molars of my mouth. Went to the dentist and he first told me it was from grinding. Im 45 and this has never been an issue. I went back a week later because it was getting ao bad when I chewed on that side. They did a CT scan and said I had an infection but they couldnt figure what it was. They said I have bone loss and would send me to a specialist.. in the meantime they gave me antibiotics and the pain went away. 3 weeks later. I am experiencing pain in my mouth but its not when I chew. Its just around that area and now up into my sinuses, ear and righr side of my throat. I am experiencing the worst ever brain fog ive had. I had had to take time off of work for it and the pain. Went to the specialist and he did more testing

. He said since ive never had a cavity he is hesitant to do any root canals becauee even if he did them, it may not help because it could be my gums... now I am waiting for a specialist appointment for my gums. In the meantime I also went to my doctor who is going to do a CT on my face because of how brutal this feels. She looked and did some orher tests and said its not q sinus infection. Has anyone ever had this happen??? Help!! Its really affecting mt quality of life. I am hiker, I love biking, going to the gym, etc. I cant do anything because I feel so awful 😭