If You Feel Ashamed of Your Teeth, Please Read This First
By Dr. Leily Razavi, Razavi Dental, Philadelphia
Almost every week, somebody sits down in my office and apologizes to me before I’ve even looked in their mouth.
“Sorry,” they say. “I know it’s bad. I should’ve come in years ago.”
I hear that a lot. People cover their mouths when they talk to me, which always gets me, because they’re already here. They already did the hard part. Some of them tell me later that they drove around the block a couple of times, or sat in their car outside our office on South Street trying to work up the nerve to come in. And these aren’t people who don’t care about themselves. A lot of them have been putting everybody else first for a long, long time, and their teeth just kept getting pushed to the bottom of the list. Then one day they look in the mirror and they don’t feel like themselves anymore, and on top of that they’re embarrassed that they let it get to this point. That’s the part I wish I could take away before we even start.
So let me just say this up front. I’ve been doing this for over seventeen years. I have seen it all, broken teeth, missing teeth, teeth that hadn’t been cleaned in a decade. Nothing you show me is going to shock me, and nobody in my office is going to scold you. We don’t do that here. If we did, people wouldn’t come back, and they’d be right not to.
Why does it get like this? It depends on the person, honestly. Sometimes the problems started back when money was tight, and by the time money wasn’t tight anymore, the problems were bigger and scarier to face. Sometimes somebody had a bad experience with a dentist when they were young and they just never wanted to go through that again. Sometimes life is just busy. Kids, work, parents getting older. Years go by fast. Then there’s the fear on top of it, that we’re going to open your mouth, look around, and judge you. I want you to hear me on this: that doesn’t happen in my chair.
Here’s what actually happens at a first visit, because I think the unknown is worse than the reality for most people.
We talk. That’s it, at first. You tell me what’s bothering you. Maybe it’s a tooth that hurts. Maybe you just hate how your smile looks in pictures with your family. Maybe you want to be able to order whatever you want at a restaurant without thinking about which side to chew on. Whatever it is, you say it in your own words, and I listen, and then we look together and figure out where things stand.
You’re allowed to go slow, too. I mean that. If we need to spread things out over months, we spread them out. If money is a concern, and for most people it is, I’ll tell you what everything costs before we do it, and I’ll tell you what actually needs attention now and what can wait a while. I’d rather you do one thing and feel good about it than leave with a huge plan that sits in a drawer because it overwhelmed you.
As for the work itself, cosmetic dentistry sounds fancier than it is. A lot of what I do day to day is pretty practical. If a tooth is missing, an implant lets you chew on that side again without thinking about it. If your teeth have shifted over the years, Invisalign straightens them quietly, and most people around you won’t even notice you’re wearing the trays. Veneers are for teeth that are chipped or worn down or a color that whitening can’t fix. And sometimes it’s simpler than all that, sometimes a good cleaning and a whitening is enough and people are surprised by how much better they feel walking out.
The thing I care about most, and my patients who know me will tell you this, is that you still look like you at the end. I did my dental degree in Toronto and my residency here in Philadelphia, at Albert Einstein, and after that I was with the faculty practice at Penn. The idea I’ve always worked by is to change as little as possible while fixing what’s actually wrong. Keep the healthy tooth that’s there. Don’t take more than you have to. I think that’s why people trust the results, they don’t look done. They just look like themselves on a good day.
Look, I know reading a blog post isn’t going to fix your teeth, and I know it might not even fix the nervous feeling. That’s okay. You don’t have to be ready for a whole treatment plan to call us. You can just come in and talk, the way I’ve described it here, and decide afterward what you want to do, including nothing for now. Plenty of people start exactly like that.
If you’ve been putting this off because you’re ashamed of the state of your teeth, please don’t let that be the thing that stops you. That’s honestly the main reason I wrote this. Call us at (215) 996-7030 whenever you’re ready. We’ll start with a conversation, and we’ll go from there, at your speed.
Dr. Leily Razavi