I had (have?) an awful fear of the dentist. I've been about every 5 or 7 years as an adult, and only when I know there's a problem to fix. I have had two extractions in the last 5 years due to neglect and no dentist visits.
In December, I finally went to see a dentist about a broken tooth I broke on a cherry stone last April. I had been kicked of the NHS list at my dentist because I hadn't been in 5 years. So I had no choice but to go privately, to the dentist they assigned. I was scared, but had no choice really - I had half a tooth left with sharp edges and another tooth had lost a filling 
The dentist was amazing. He took the briefest of looks on the first visit, while I sobbed and pinged in an out of the chair every time he came close. He booked me in for the extraction and a filling and said we'd go from there. He was totally amazing, as was his dental nurse, they spoke to me, and listened to me, and gave me a hand signal to use if it hurt or I wanted him to stop. It did hurt, I did wave the signal, he stopped, we spoke, he gave me more pain relief, and for the first time ever, I had painless dental treatment. He did an extraction and a filling on that visit, and while it wasn't nice, obviously, it also wasn't hideous.
I went back a month later (Christmas got in the way) and had two more fillings and then cleaned. I'd never had them cleaned before, and now all the yellow/green plaque has gone. The cleaning wasn't very nice, but I trusted him after he listed about the pain, and I got through it. I will go back to him every 6 months now and never get kicked off his list as he's the first dentist in 40 years that has actually listened and believed me when I've said it still hurts. I trust him to stop if I ask him to, and to help me find a way to stop it hurting, and to not shame me about the state of my teeth.
If you're in Cambridgeshire, I'll let you know his name!