To want dentures at 30 to stop this constant worrying??

[Coffeeebean]

Bit of an odd one

I have HORRIBLE anxiety about my teeth. Horrible.

I am constantly worried about decay and check them pretty much hourly with a torch and a mirror in my mouth. If I notice a new dark spot that I havent seen before its day and days of anxiety and tears and checking checking checking.

Eating anything sugary stresses me out and I have to rinse my mouth out immediately after.

I brush 3-4 times a day which I know is bad in itself. I also go to see my poor dentist every 3-4 months because ive found another thing that i need to get checked because i cant eat from the anxiety of it being decay.

The strangest thing is...nothing has ever been wrong with them. Ive never had any work done. My teeth have lots of staining and some enamel erosion due to an ED in my 20s....but my dentist reassures me they are fine.

Despite being told this from multiple dentist, I am still always thinking about my teeth. Worrying about the future. How long will they last, what work will i need done, will i be able to afford it.

I am already on medication for anxiety and have had CBT. I told my GP about my behaviour with my teeth (as was concerned it was OCD) and was told there was nothing else that could be done.

So, AIBU to want to have them all removed now so i can stop this constant worrying???

I feel like they are ruining my life

It was common practice back in his day (which I stated) and which other posters have confirmed.

I didn’t say it was common practice in 2024.

Again, you’re being disingenuous.

Lol, I hear you. Teeth are annoying and a modern version of dentures would be appreciated by me 😬

I can kind of relate, I had really bad dental phobia and anxiety when I was younger and thought that having all my teeth removed and dentures were the answer. However, it's easy to think the grass is greener, you don't know what dentures are like and by 'solving' one problem you may create a whole lot of different ones. I also think there's the possibility your fixation may move on to some other aspect and you're then stuck trying to 'fix' more and more things. I think you need help with your thoughts and to stop checking your teeth obsessively. I'd go back to your GP or if you can afford it maybe look at a good private eg CBT practioner.

This.

Teeth are a body part and should not be removed in the hope it will cure someone's anxiety.

Removing teeth doesn't remove any anxiety around dental work. There's still work involved in creating dentures. There's risk of complications. Risk of dentures breaking, risk of dentures falling out. Risk of oral thrush. Risk that the OP won't be able to get a new set made.

Indeed. All true.

This was "a thing", a very bad thing because your gums and jaws recede causing even more problems.
OP, please get some more help for your anxiety. Teeth don't have to look perfect, just do their job to keep you fit and healthy. For example, dentures are likely to mean an ageing of your jaw bones meaning you can eat less variety of foods leading to malnutrition.

So your grandads experience with dentures is irrelevant as you agree its completelt immoral to extract someone's teeth to treat anxiety. And you agree it's not do what works for you?

My father’s experience is relevant to the general discussion. I notice other posters have similar family histories. No-one is saying this is common practice in 2024 although it absolutely was back in his day.

I think the OP has to make her own decision, based not just on what she wants but also on what will work best for her. At the end of the day it’s a case of “my body, my choice”. I hope her choices are good for her general wellbeing.

A common dream is one where your teeth decay or fall out. It's connected to poor self esteem. Because our teeth and our smile are so prominent in our face, dreaming about them falling out means you are worried about how you appear to other people. I regularly had such dreams the night before doing a presentation.

I'm no expert, but could your worries about your teeth be linked to low self esteem, worries about how other people see you?

Your teeth are fine, but you need therapy of some sort to get over your obsession. Hypnotherapy might help

This is OCD and it WILL continue or transfer to something else if you try to give in to it. Get some distance from the thoughts and identify that they are symptoms

It's probably more scary to you because you haven't had any work done before. You haven't been through it and taught your brain that it's fine, you can survive it!

This sounds so hard for you. I second the person who recommended looking into ACT and/or EMDR. I am a clinical psychologist and I also agree that getting veneers may temporarily help the problem but you will likely find the OCD then manifests in other ways.

Foolish answer

You've advised a 30 year old who clearly has MH issues to have all their (perfectly healthy) teeth removed. Shame on you @AgileGreenSeal .

Could you have implants?

No, I haven’t.

What exactly do you think you are contributing to this discussion?

Your relative's experience way back when is of absolutely no relevance to a 30 year old woman in 2024 who has somehow convinced herself that removing her HEALTHY teeth will cure her mental health issues.

As I said before
My father’s experience is relevant to the general discussion. I notice other posters have similar family histories. No-one is saying this is common practice in 2024 although it absolutely was back in his day.

I think the OP has to make her own decision, based not just on what she wants but also on what will work best for her. At the end of the day it’s a case of “my body, my choice”. I hope her choices are good for her general wellbeing.

This sounds really difficult OP and must be a very frustrating and hard thing to have on your mind so much. The thing is if you get dentures in your 30's you will then have to contend with the issues surrounding that such as bone loss, the longer you wear dentures the more at risk you are of jaw bone loss unless you were to use implants and bone grafts etc in order to continue to stimulate your jaw bone. As a dentists main remit is to attempt to keep natural teeth for as long as possible I very much doubt you would find a dentist willing to extract a mouth full of healthy teeth and put you through surgical procedures like that. It also seems that due to your general anxiety and without other support measures you may well just transfer the stress and anxiety onto another thing in your life and fixate upon that instead. You would-be better dealing with the underlying cause of you feeling this way about your teeth rather than getting rid of them. I'm assuming that due to past ED and general anxiety issues that you may behave sought help from a counsellor or therapist in the past. Is this something you would consider for this issue?

are you in England so that you can self refer to your local talking therapies service? Make sure you explain at triage about your constant checking and worrying about your teeth, be honest about the amount of time you spend on it. That way they should refer you in to treatment for the OCD type behaviour rather than a less intensive general anxiety introduction.

I'm quite sure that therapy to help you with your OCD would be cheaper than getting all of your teeth removed and getting dentures. It's your only option anyways because no dentist is going to remove your healthy teeth for no reason.

Nothing replaces natural teeth. I have crowns and a partial denture so I know. I hope you can get help with the anxiety OP but please don't get your teeth removed. I have general anxiety and I know how horrible it is.

No dentist will extract healthy teeth. There are risks with tooth extraction and worse case you could end up with pain for the rest of your life ( neuropathy) where the nerves in your gum and jaw are damaged - particularly if multiple teeth are removed in a short space of time - not to mention the real risk of infection. Believe me this would cause you far more anxiety than you have today.

As others have suggested you really need to get therapy for the underlying issues causing your anxiety as this would just project elsewhere if you “sorted your teeth”

This. Removing your teeth won't help because it doesn't fix the underlying OCD and anxiety issue.