Dental phobia patients 'benefit from talking therapy' - research

[Northerner]

People with a dental phobia are more likely to undergo treatment without sedation if they have had Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), research suggests.

The research, published in the British Dental Journal, looked at 130 people who all feared dental treatment.

All had talking therapy, and more than three-quarters went on to have treatment without sedation.

The research was carried out by King's College London.

Patients with a dental phobia are often sedated to allow them to become relaxed enough to have work done to their teeth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34933598

 

[grovesy]

Wonder how long they would have to wait to get the CBT!

 

[AlisonM]

B******s! I tried that years ago and, guess what, I'm still terrified of dentists. To be fair, I suppose it might work for some folk, it just didn't help me at all. Logically, I know perfectly well that dentists such as the one who hurt and terrorised me when I was 4 are the exception, but it makes no difference at all to the little girl quaking inside me.

 

[Northerner]

B******s! I tried that years ago and, guess what, I'm still terrified of dentists. To be fair, I suppose it might work for some folk, it just didn't help me at all. Logically, I know perfectly well that dentists such as the one who hurt and terrorised me when I was 4 are the exception, but it makes no difference at all to the little girl quaking inside me.

I had a long-term fear of dentists until I found my current one, who I have been with for over 10 years now. He is brilliant and the whole practice have the same approach and philosophy as him. He's one of the reasons I would have to think hard about moving house! We had terrible school dentists when I was a kid, they left my sister so traumatised she had to be fully sedated for a check up and ended up losing all her teeth in later life I've lost just one so far, and that was partly because of diabetes - a long-dormant abscess that had been treated and root-filled ten years earlier re-awoke and wouldn't go away - 3 months later I was diagnosed

It strikes me that being a CBT doc is going to be the most in-demand profession in medicine before too long! 😱