Dental Anxiety

I'm going to the dentist today. I am not looking forward to going to the dentist.

For my whole life, I have had relatively 'good' teeth. I don't really get cavities. I think I had 1, plus 1 in a baby tooth, for my first 29 years. I'm not sure what happened, but my tooth enamel has decided to crap out on me in the last couple of years. This has led to broken/chipped teeth and cavities. It's a real bummer.

At my last checkup, which was admittedly way overdue, the dentist discovered 1 broken tooth (I knew that one was there), 1 chipped tooth (had no idea about that one), and 2 cavities! I'm headed back today to have both the broken teeth fixed and one of the cavities filled. These 3 teeth happen to be in 3 of the 4 different quadrants of my mouth, so I'm not too sure how much anesthetic they'll have to use. Plus, I haven't had ANY dental work outside of cleanings done since I was about 11, so I don't even know what to expect. I'm pretty much terrified!

The cavity that they are not dealing with today just happens to be in a wisdom tooth (I still have all of mine). It was pretty much inevitable that this tooth was going to get a cavity since my gum partially covers it and makes it impossible to clean. So, I get to go to the oral surgeon in December for an extraction. Lucky me. I have avoided wisdom tooth removal thus far because I just didn't want to do it. The dentist offered to fill it for me, but the filling probably would only be a temporary measure, so it seemed like taking the darn thing out was a better idea. I'm definitely not looking forward to that either!