must check temperature now

I had a dentist appointment today and wasn't feeling well in the hours leading up to it. I actually drove to the pharmacy down the street just to buy some of those disposable covers for thermometers so that I could take my temperature and reassure myself I wasn't sick.

As I got out of the car and walked up to the store, it hit me how ridiculous I was being. Would someone who was sick with a fever really have the energy to run a quick errand and remember to grab a CD before they left and be singing along with the music on the way? Even if they did, they'd certainly feel worse by the time they got there, and I felt much better (I'm assuming because I was taking action to solve my non-existent problem).

On top of that, my car's "check tire pressure" light was on, and it probably would have been a better use of my time if I had added some minutes to my for-emergencies cell phone in case I had a tire problem on the very long drive to the dentist. Because let's face it, that was much more likely to happen than me getting sick during my dentist appointment.

Not my most rational moment. Luckily, I did not have any car trouble. Or a fever.

Anyway, aside from minor crazy behaviors like the above, I have been doing well. Very little anxiety. Life is good.

Hope everyone else is doing good too!    

dentist anxiety

I had to go to the dentist today to get some filling work done. They gave me a tiny partial filling in one tooth, and they also removed a filling I got when I was a child (one of those old mercury ones) and replaced it with the upgraded version.

I'm surprised at how anxious I was. This procedure was nothing compared to the wisdom teeth extraction, but for some reason I had lower anxiety during that one. Maybe just because I had lower anxiety in general back then.

I wish I was more comfortable talking to people (like dentists, doctors) about my phobia. I always think to myself that maybe I should give some brief explanation before they do whatever they're going to do, but I usually chicken out. They see I'm anxious, but they assume it's because of the pain, so that's what they reassure me about. I don't worry about the pain that much. I worry about all the objects and substances being shoved in my mouth, especially the substances. I worry about my mouth being numb. I also don't like being horizontal while they're doing all this, and I really hate it when they adjust the chair to the point where my head is lower than the rest of my body. It's awful to feel like you're upside down when you're anxious.

There were all these nasty tastes in my mouth after a while, and I could feel myself getting very scared. I was starting to feel "sick" and could feel my heart pounding in my stomach. Sometimes (here being a good example) I'm almost grateful for my social anxiety, because I fear that without it I would be much more likely to escape situations, to sit up right in the middle of my filling and say "okay, I'm done here." But I don't want to embarrass myself, so I search around desperately for things to tell myself to make myself stay, like:

• They do this procedure all the time. They can't possibly expect that whatever they are putting in my mouth would cause nausea/vomiting. If they did, they would have something ready in case of that happening. They would have warned me.
• My heart is pounding. This is clearly anxiety. Don't forget to keep breathing, slowly and calmly.
• Even if I did vomit, it's not as though this is a normal public place, like a mall. It's like a doctor's office. I wouldn't have to feel as humiliated about it here.

If I can visualize my mouth as disconnected from the rest of my body, it's easier. All the numbness and drilling and other stuff is going on there, not anywhere else. I can use my nose for breathing. I don't have to swallow. I just pretend it's not a part of me, or at least not a part that I need for the moment.

The procedure only took about fifteen minutes. When I sat up at the end, I discovered I was really shaky, so walking out to the car felt weird. Also, once I started driving, I started feeling even more "sick" and had to pull into a parking lot and sit for ten minutes to calm down. I had a bottle of water and probably would have felt better if I had rinsed out my mouth, but there's the downside of the social anxiety. I couldn't talk myself into doing that where other people could possibly see me. So I just took sips of the water instead, which helped a lot. Every time I swallowed a little water, the sick feeling went away temporarily, so I started driving again and kept taking sips all the way home. By the time I got there, I was feeling better.

I know I should be proud of myself for getting through it. I won't have to worry about it anymore, and it's nice to know I no longer have mercury in my mouth. But man. Right now I just feel wiped out. Anxiety is exhausting.