There are a lot of things that everyone has been putting off for the past year. I’m guilty of this too. There are doctor appointments that I should have scheduled last year that I didn’t do. None of them were urgent and my doctors were ok with me putting things off. Eventually, I’ll start working on scheduling those again but I’m still being cautious about where I go and what I do. So unless I need to get to the doctor for some reason, I’m waiting just a little longer.
When the pandemic started last year, any appointments I had scheduled were canceled. That included the dentist. And they said they would let me know when things were opening again so I could reschedule. But this was when we all thought this might only take a month or two before life was back to normal. And if I didn’t have an issue with one of my crowns, I know I would have continued to put off dentist appointments. I don’t know how long I would have put them off because I know that I have genetically bad teeth. And I learned when I went in for replacing my crown that waiting as long as I did have some negative effects. I was ok and my teeth are fine, but it was a sign that I need to make sure I continue to go regularly.
And for the most part, I have done that. It is weird going to the dentist right now since there is no way to keep a mask on while they are cleaning your teeth. But I trust my dentists to keep things clean and they are being very cautious about when they schedule patients so that any overlap is minimal. I do appreciate the efforts they have been making to keep things clean and safe, but it’s still been extra stressful whenever I’ve gone in. I knew they were being careful, but there was always a small risk about being somewhere without a mask on if there was another patient there also without a mask (all the staff has masks and shields, so I wasn’t too worried about them).
When I scheduled my most recent dentist appointment, it was when I was leaving after my last appointment. At that time, I was hopeful about getting a vaccine at some point, but I had no idea when it was going to happen so that timing wasn’t something I considered while scheduling it. But once I got my first vaccine and knew when I’d be fully vaccinated, I looked at my schedule and realized my dentist appointment was 3 weeks before I would be fully vaccinated. So I called to reschedule and my dentist agreed that it was a smart decision. 3 weeks wasn’t going to make a huge difference and it would be much safer for me to be there if I was fully vaccinated.
I had my dentist appointment last week and it went as well as I could have hoped. I’m always fearful that I will find out that there is something horribly wrong with my teeth. I know that I do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen, but I can’t always prevent it. That’s why we have to go in for professional cleanings. If we could do enough at home, we’d only be at the dentist when something was really wrong. There were some small issues that were related to waiting an extra 3 weeks before my appointment, but nothing that bad or unexpected.
And even though I will always be a bit panicky at the dentist, it was nice to not have to be panicked about COVID as well. I still felt a bit weird being somewhere without a mask, but I don’t have the same fear that I had before. I know that if I am exposed, I will likely be ok. And I did see some of the cleaning procedures between patients this time, and that made me feel better seeing all the work they did to keep everyone safe. Having one less thing to worry about felt nice and helped me get through my appointment.
And by the time I go back for my next appointment, things will hopefully be even safer. More and more people are being vaccinated each day. We will all still have to take some precautions for a while, but the risk will be decreasing as the vaccinated population increases. And I’m sure some of the safety things they have been doing at the dentist will continue even when they don’t have to do them because they are becoming common practices (such as using hydrogen peroxide as mouthwash to disinfect before a cleaning).
Hopefully, I will only have to panic about the normal things from now on because now I know how much easier it makes things for me.
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