The leather chair was cold against my skin. I felt a pain in jaw as my tooth was being drilled. All I could see was the blinding light above my face. I tasted blood on my gums and the smell of the antiseptic gave me a headache. This was the last place I wanted to be.

My anxiety disorder only gets extreme when I am on a plane, having surgery, or at the dentist. So when I felt a terrible pain on my upper-right molar on one evening, my level of anxiety went up a few notches. As the pain got worse, I decided to tell my mom.

“Hey mom, I think I might need a dentist appointment.” I don’t think I had ever asked my mom to take me to the dentist before that day. I usually had to be dragged there like a screaming child. But she did make the appointment. And of course, when I got to the dentist they found an abscessed tooth.


“I’m sending you to an endodontist for a root canal” said my dentist. That sent my heart racing.
“It’s gonna hurt isn’t it?’’ I was pretending to joke.
“Nope. Don’t be such a pessimist!” He gave me a prescription for painkillers and antibiotics and scheduled my root canal for the next week.
I walked in to the endodontist’s office and my heart rate increased. When the nurse called me in it seemed like hours had passed sitting in the waiting room.

I figured the nurse could tell I was nervous when she looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, we’ve got mister nose all ready for ya!”

“Okay! Thanks!” I was trying to hide my anxiety. I sat in the chair and the nurse placed the rubber nose on my face. As I breathed in the nitrous oxide, I felt more relaxed. But most of my calmness went away when the doctor brought in the huge needle.

“You should feel a little sting, but this will numb you up so we can work on that tooth!” I figured he was lying when he said “little sting”. Doctors usually lie about pain so they don’t freak you out. I braced my self as he inserted the needle in my gums. He wasn’t lying about the little sting.

When my tooth was numb the endodontist and the nurse went to work. I didn’t really know what they were doing, but I tried to ignore them and go into my little world. The doctor made this quite difficult though. He wouldn’t stop talking to the nurse about The Tour de France. And as he was drilling, I noticed that him and his nurse were being very flirtatious. I decided that they had a secret relationship and the nurse was his mistress. The thought made me laugh and I guess the doctor thought I was in pain.

“You okay?” He asked

“Mhm” I mumbled with a bunch of dental tools in my mouth. Then I was anxious again. It was the doctor’s fault for snapping me out of my thoughts. I looked into the bright light hovering above my face and I could see the reflection of what they were doing. I saw screws being forced into a huge hole in my tooth. My eyes got wide and my breathing quickened. I forced my self to stay somewhat calm though. I wasn’t experiencing any pain, but the sight of what was going on inside my mouth made me want to throw up.
Then he finally said, “We’re finished!” I was so relieved. “But you’re gonna have to come back tomorrow.”

“What?” I said in shock. I did not want to go through that again.

“You’re tooth is still draining out the infection.” He said. “But I did inject some antibiotics into the root to speed things up a little.”

The next day I was back in the chair with mister nose on my face. I wasn’t as anxious but it seemed to take longer. They did more drilling and shoved more screws in, but they eventually finished.

“We’re finished for now, but I’m gonna need you to come back again tomorrow.” I could tell he felt sorry for me, but I was too tired from all the laughing gas to care. So the next day I was in the chair again. And finally the entire root canal was finished. My head was hurting and my jaw was sore from holding my mouth open. I had spent a total of nine hours in that chair.

Anxiety disorder is defined as a mental illness of abnormal and pathological fear; but their is nothing abnormal about my anxiety. I consider it a normal thing for me. Even though I did learn that my fears were not necessary, I know that the next time I sit in a dentist’s chair I will be just as nervous, and this whole experience will be irrelevant. All I know is that the only cause of my anxiety is anxiety itself, and nothing is going to change that.