My tooth has been bothering me for quite sometime now (more or less three weeks), and I still haven’t made a trip to my friendly neighborhood dentist to get it fixed.

I wouldn’t exactly classify myself as a dental phobic but I should say that I come pretty close. I’m really not a big fan of them, even if I know that I would eventually have to see them, with their drills and injections and what-nots once the pain gets unbearable.

Some of you might wonder why I would choose to languish in pain rather than just get it over with. I do have a great (current) dentist, contrary to public opinion. That being said, then I should not make a big deal out of it getting a filling, right?

I guess its because I often associate dentists with pain. There was one time not so long ago, that I went to have a tooth extracted and this dentist (whom I will refuse to name) kept on pulling on my tooth (ouch) to no avail. I couldn’t remember if she had put in anaesthesia or not because the pain was excruciating. And the worst part was, she would not have stopped had I not told her to. She would have continued to pull until my gums bled or I had passed out, whichever came first. It was one harrowing experience and was the exact moment I fully understood why tooth pulling remains as one of the most tried and tested torture methods on the planet.

Another image I could not get out of my head was the movie The Dentist (although I know that it was fiction and that my dentist would not use her tools to kill me). I just feel anxious every time I sit on the dental chair with the light on my face, the sound of that drill and the subsequent smell of disinfectant and mouthwash surrounding me. I hate the feeling of the drill touching or probing the nerve endings of my gums or the sound that dental tools make when they touch my tooth. There are much more things that I’m not a fan of, but I’m sure you get my drift.

I’m not really a squeamish person by nature but I do have limits. And this is mine. I guess its a psychological thing, my aversion to dentists. After all, they only want to fix my dental problems and make my pearly whites as they should be.

The question is, how do I get over this? I would have to figure that out soon because as I keep putting off the inevitable, my tooth is aching like crazy. Help, anyone?