Advertisement For 30 years, Gene Lazar didn’t go to the dentist. He was the CFO of a successful company and had health insurance. But money was not the problem.
“When it comes to dental work,” says the North Carolina retiree, “I just freeze.”
A traumatic experience — cited by many who have anxiety about the dentist — scared Lazar off. Thirty years ago his employer pushed him to go; he hadn’t been for years before that. And that two-hour visit was so terrifying that he stayed away for decades.
His gums became so bad that his teeth were loose. Family and friends nagged him to go. “I always talked with my hand in front of my mouth,” he says.
Then, one day in April, Lazar went back. It wasn’t easy. “I couldn’t sleep the entire night before,” he says.
The American Dental Association estimates that 30 percent of Americans do not regularly go to the dentist. While many of them cite cost as the reason, one-third of Americans who have dental insurance still don’t go — sometimes for years.
“They just don’t want to hear the diagnosis,” says Dr. Kimberly Harms, a dentist in Farmington, Minn., and an ADA consumer adviser.
Two-thirds of people who believe they are in bad oral health — the people who need to go to the dentist most — do not go, according to a study cited by the ADA.
Until they have an unbearable toothache.
“And then, they hurt you even more,” says Philip Weinstein, a clinical psychologist and the co-founder of the Dental Fears Research Clinic at the University of Washington. For 30 years, Weinstein has studied why people don’t go to the dentist.
If you only go in an emergency, there is already something very wrong with your teeth. Addressing that advanced problem is painful and expensive. “It reinforces the fear and adds to the problem of dental avoidance,” Weinstein says.
In other words, the more you don’t go to the dentist, the more you won’t go to the dentist.
Dentists are trying to address their longtime stereotype as inflictors of pain and discomfort. Since the mid-1980s, many dentists have made patient comfort a top priority, investing in new equipment and learning techniques like sedation dentistry.
“We are becoming more patient-focused,” says Harms. “We’re looking at the person, and not just the teeth.”
Not enough, counters Weinstein.
“Most dentists are guilty of over-treatment. They confront the patient with a laundry list of everything that’s wrong. They should ease into it more, build some trust, give the patient some control.”
Weinstein says that people go back — and keep coming back — if they believe they can improve their lives. Lazar changed his diet and lost 35 pounds.
“I’m going to lose 50,” he says confidently.
“This can have a profound impact on someone’s life,” Weinstein says.
So how bad was it when Lazar went back to the dentist?
He walked into Dr. Lori Pappert’s Charlotte, N.C., office and saw a sign that read, “We cater to cowards.” He’d found a home. In a sedated session, he had four teeth pulled but felt “no discomfort.” Now he’s set for a deep cleaning of plaque and tartar below the gums. “I don’t have any fear, but I do think this part might hurt the most,” he says.
He’s going to face it.
STEPS TO TAKE
Sources: Dr. Kimberly Harms, American Dental Association
