Navigating Dental Treatment with Sensory Differences

How can you ask everyone involved with medical or dental issues to help you support whatever sensory differences you have? Maybe it’s even joking, like for me I found it therapeutic to tell a friend I said I’m scared, like it just makes me laugh. Who can you laugh and joke with? Who is your community? And if you don’t feel like you have one, let yourself imagine, let yourself dream, let yourself create something for yourself.

Previously, the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, you’re listening to what’s now the Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham podcast. Learn to love and care for all your parts, including your AuDHD and trauma, from the soles of your feet to your soul.

I’m your host and producer, Eve Menezes Cunningham. I’m also an author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing. I’m a columnist for Platinum Magazine, monthly columnist, and I use my Feel. Love. Heal. framework to support readers with their questions each month.

And I’ve also written for hundreds of titles over the years as a freelance journalist, and also contributed comment around my specialisms of sleep, trauma, anxiety, neurodivergence, burnout, confidence, finding more purpose, meaning and joy, embodied somatic approaches. It’s very holistic, my approach. I’m a trauma therapist and trauma survivor.

I’m an AuDHD coach and AuDHDer, and I’m a self-care coach where I integrate all of my therapies and coaching. So that includes the NLP, the EFT, the crystals, the psychosynthesis counselling, the yoga, the meditation, the mindfulness, the psychoeducation. It’s a very collaborative approach.

In the podcast, Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD, certain episodes may be more in one direction, more another. Not everyone is interested in all of my offerings, and obviously that’s fine. My intention is to help you remember that you know yourself best, to help you connect with your whole self, to help you work with all your parts and to help you find that tenderness, that care, that love.

You can help me keep this free by sharing, by subscribing, by giving me a five-star review if you’d like and letting me know what you’d like more of. You can email eve@solestosoul.ie or comment in any of the comment sections. And I also encourage you to visit solestosoul.ie for full show notes, as well as wherever you’re listening and links and additional resources.

There are lots of free resources, and you can sign up for my free weekly newsletter, Míle Buíochas Mondays. It comes out every Monday. Míle buíochas translates as a thousand thank yous in Irish, and as well as encouraging a gratitude practice, it’s polyvagal-informed journal prompts approach to help you map your nervous system, to help you acknowledge that yes, there’s a lot to be grateful for, there’s a lot that’s magical and awe-inspiring in the world and there’s also an enormous amount coming up for healing. And it’s not about denial, it’s not about toxic positivity, it’s about meeting yourself where you are and accessing the supports that are going to help you with that. So do sign up for that for free at the website and you can if you’re local enough to Westport, you might be interested in the Westport Lunar Circles that I run each month around or on the Full Moon (used to be Waning Half Moon).

It’s a lovely small group and you can find out more again at the website. I hope that you enjoy this episode. Thanks again for listening and as you listen to the episode, connect with your soles to your soul, scan your whole self, notice what emerges, what parts of the body, what parts of yourself need extra tenderness, need that love, need that care.

Ask yourself, if I truly loved myself, what would I be doing? And aim to do that. Get to know yourself and enjoy.

Do you have excellent gum health and oral health, dental health? Or do you dread the dentist and feel you go into shame spirals? Or is it just something you don’t think about? It’s World Oral Health Day on the 20th of March and I’m recording this in February while recovering from gum surgery. I’d show you, but that would be disgusting and also it hurts too much. But I thought it’s a great time.

We’ve got the equinox on the 21st, that beautiful balance point between the winter solstice and the summer solstice. And I want to encourage you with today’s episode to balance any sensory differences you have with your desire to have healthy teeth and gums, a healthy mouth. I have been ashamed as so many neurodivergent people, although I only recently found out I was neurodivergent, my whole life it’s been a matter of I should be flossing.

I know lots of people, they struggle with sensory issues around even brushing teeth. So I guess I’m lucky there. But when it comes to flossing, I was told that the little floss sets that I can use aren’t good enough.

And I was given the TePe things, which I would be fine with one use. But after that, it’s just like, I don’t know what it is. I just can’t.

And I’ve been saying to dentists for years that I can’t, but they’re like, you have gum disease. And it’s like, OK. And then shame, guilt, despair, all of it.

And I had to have dental surgery, gum surgery in my 20s when I was living in London. And at the time, it meant going every week to the Eastman Dental Hospital in King’s Cross. And I do things like lose my travel pass on the Tube because I was so out of it going back home on my own.

This week, I had my partner with me. I threw myself a pity party. I was really scared because when I think back to my 20s, around that time, a lot of flashbacks, a lot of very early childhood stuff was coming up for healing for me around trauma that I was just beginning to deal with sober.

And it was really painful. And it kind of became linked. It felt the symptoms were linked with the root canal.

And it was very messy. Basically, it was the last time I felt suicidal in my 20s. I’m 50 now, but I’d felt suicidal for a lot of my childhood and my teens and around that time.

So when it came up to the gum surgery, this time, an enormous amount going on in life, life is lifing very hard, both globally and personally. And this time, I knew to ground, I knew to journal more, to reflect, to really talk to loved ones. And I amped up my yoga, I amped up my swimming.

I know how to look after myself now, but it’s been tough. When I got out of the dental surgery, he told me initially I had to advocate for myself. So he was telling me what he was going to do.

He’d taken x-rays the previous time and shown me just how grim it all was up around one of the teeth. And, oh, I can touch that without agony. Brilliant.

It’s healing. The dental surgeon started telling me in graphic detail what he was going to do based on what he had seen from the x-rays he took during our consultation. And I, being 50 now, was able to recognise my sensory differences and say, I trust you, thank you very much, but would you mind not telling me all of that, please? I have a very active imagination and I just want to focus on my calming breaths.

I also advocated for myself by asking if I could wear sunglasses because the light was so bright. And I always find that at the dentist. This is the first time that I’ve actually asked.

He said as long as they were kind of wide enough to be protective, and they were. So that made a huge difference. I was really honest with him about the flossing, which I have been in December at the consultation.

And he told me then that there was a special brush I could use. As it turned out, the special brush was the TePe thing that I hate. I just can’t use.

I am going to try the water flossing. I’ll kind of research and get one of those. And I don’t like the idea of it, but it might be the answer to everything.

I’m really conscious that because I wasn’t doing what the dentist was telling me to do and I said, I can’t do that. They said something along the lines of, there’s no point doing what you’re doing with the little floss sets. So I stopped flossing a few years ago because it’s like, well, what’s the point? So again, understanding more about my differently wired brain, recognising it’s OK.

It’s better than nothing rather than the black and white thinking. Fine. OK.

I won’t bother. And I could have continued doing that every day and I just haven’t for years. So just thinking all the sensory issues that go into dental care, go into dental hygiene.

I told them that I am ADHD when I went in December. And when they asked for my name at reception the other day, I said, I’m scared because I was, I was really, really scared. And when I think back, it was remembering the horrors of all the dental stuff in my twenties and all the flashbacks and all the internal exams with the endometriosis and everything.

It’s all very, very linked. After I came home, yes, I was dosed on the painkillers. I’m still on painkillers.

And the mouth is sore from the surgery. But when he showed me the infection that he had removed, I felt my entire system just all the healing I have had in the past 30 odd years, 25 years, 20 years, all the work I’ve done on myself, all the everything, and just feeling like, wow. So I had that infection for, I’d say a good decade, I’ve been told.

But again, because I was shame spiralling, I didn’t fully get infection. So even like my, I was going to show you my body battery. I have a body battery tracker with my Garmin.

Or like, sometimes like 70 would be good, like 70 would be normal. You’re meant to be around 100%. And I just thought, well, I just don’t, it doesn’t work for me.

I guess my nervous system is wired that differently, that it’s never going to. This morning, I woke up and it was 98%. So that’s in pain from the surgery.

I’ve had it above 90, like 90, 91, maybe three times in three years, nearly two and a half years. And here it is 98% where, yeah, just thinking about the infection, thinking so many people with trauma histories, with neurodivergence, with sensory issues. And apart from like, I want to keep my teeth, I have an implant already from years ago, where that root canal that I had the gum surgery on, it ultimately went bad and I needed an implant.

But they lasted me over a decade or so, I think maybe two. But the point is my teeth, my dad used to call me Sharky when I was a teenager, because I had too many teeth in my mouth. And I had four teeth removed and the train track braces and it was just hideous.

And I remember in Basildon, in Essex, being a specialist dentist where they were removing the teeth. And I remember wanting to jump out the window because I hated what he was doing. I really did not feel safe at all.

I think he did remove the teeth and it was then the train track braces. But you’re thinking like the mouth is a really sensitive part of the body. We need it to eat, we need it to breathe, to talk, to smile, like all these things.

And no wonder those of us with sensory issues often struggle. So I thought I’d just take this opportunity for World Oral Health Day to encourage you to be honest with your own dental health care providers, to think about what do you need in order to take better care of yourself when it comes to your teeth and your gums and your body? It might be not dental, it might be something else that resonates from this.

So I go through the Feel. Love. Heal. framework each time.

And the Feel bit is the self-care, the like kind of how it’s normally written, lowercase s hyphen care. It’s the regulatory stuff. It’s the things we can do to help ourselves feel better.

I had been really anxious for days about this. I’d been really throwing myself a pity party. And when I was in the dental chair, it was just immediate.

The conscious calming breaths, the staying connected with my body in a safe way, telling myself it’s OK, you’re safe. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was fine. It was all the anxiety, all the anticipation.

The calming breaths, breathwork is something wonderful we can do that’s a regulatory practice. If you’re interested, I have loads of different types of pranayama on the website at solestosoul.ie/book, under the book bonus videos, if you scroll down. So there are breath practices that can help us calm down, that can lift our nervous system and give us energy, that can help us feel more balanced, that can be clearing, that can help us create more space emotionally and mentally, as well as in our lungs.

The breath is a remarkable tool that we have access to almost 24, well, we’re breathing 24/7, but in most places, we can consciously change our breath. And that’s going to change by sending those 80% of signals going up to the vagus, via the vagus up to the brain, and then cascading back down to the whole nervous system. It’s much, much faster for us to breathe ourselves calm or confident or energised or balanced or whatever it is, or move, like with posture, with movement, than it is to just like beat yourself up mentally telling yourself calm down when you’re not.

So in terms of the Feel part of the framework, breathwork is a wonderful, wonderful tool. And also strong movement, honour the ancient wiring, get those stress hormones out of the system, do cartwheels, do sun salutations, push-ups, go for a brisk walk or run, whatever it is for you, something to help you move it out of your body, help you process it, complete the stress cycle. So think for yourself what helps you when you have something medical or dental and apart from the anxiety or fear around the actual procedure or condition, you also have the sensory differences to contend with, and you may or may not.

It’s taken me 50 years to learn to advocate for myself. I mean, I hope it doesn’t take you that long. And if you’re older than me, it’s never too late.

Moving then to the Love part of the framework, based around the Love archetype in psychosynthesis, that acceptance, that support, that reminder that we’re all part of the divine, we’re all part of nature, you do not have to change a thing. I included the dentist and the dental surgeon, the staff at the periodontist, all of them in my Metta that morning when I was preparing to go. I do Metta meditation every morning, sending that loving kindness, you start with yourself, you move out, there’ll be a link in the show notes, but it’s one of my favourite meditative practices.

And it’s just a wonderful way to remind myself we’re all connected. I’m in safe hands. If I’d had more time and energy, I might have sent additional Metta to my gums, to my mouth.

I didn’t. But the more we can love ourselves, the more we can accept ourselves, the more we can honour whatever it is that we need, the calmer we are, the more resourceful we are, and the more compassionate we are with ourselves and with others. So for me, introducing myself at reception, “I’m scared.” I have no regrets. It made them laugh. It made me laugh.

And it basically gave me permission to not mask, to not pretend to be feeling better than I was. At every step of the way, I was honest about what I needed. And I didn’t judge myself in the same way that younger me would have.

So whether you’re facing dental treatment or medical treatment of any kind, just ask yourself, how can you be more loving, more accepting, more supportive of yourself exactly as you are? How can you open up about what you need, moving into that ventral vagal energy, that what I call purr with the Polyvagal Purrs approach? How can you ask for help? If you can’t imagine actually asking for help, give yourself permission to even dream of, if you had no issues, asking for help, love, support. If you knew with every fibre of your being, as you are, completely worthy and not too much and enough and lovable, if you really believed that with every fibre of your being, what supports would you be asking for? What help would you be asking for? I’m so grateful that my partner was able to come with me. And I arranged that a long time in advance.

And we went for lunch before. It was lovely. It was kind of a change for me.

I’m used to doing things like this on my own. And that was part of the healing. That was part of like all these weeks of a lot going on.

And then, wow, just feeling like I’d, I felt the next day like I’d been reborn. I know that sounds really dramatic. I was in a lot of pain.

But I felt like, wow, with that infection gone, and when I imagine the healing, metaphorically around the trauma, like I’ve done so much trauma work, I’ve done so much trauma recovery, like my job, I’m a trauma therapist now. I do so many things on a regular basis. And yet this one thing that came at the end of several weeks of angst, of deep, deep, healing isn’t linear, and more stuff, a lot more stuff, I was feeling like I’d been bludgeoned and beaten up at some points.

And recognising how far I’ve come and how beneficial grounding and reflecting and processing really are. So you can sign up for my free weekly newsletter with journal prompts to help you on a regular basis. And you can also access, I’ve forgotten what I was going to link to, so I will leave that.

I will pause for a moment because someone’s phoning. So I paused and I’m not sure exactly where I was. So I’ll try and remember.

Yeah, just imagining that you really loved yourself. If you were to imagine that you were someone who loved yourself with every fibre of your being and knew that you deserve dental care, medical care, with care, like self care, compassion, tenderness, what would you do differently?

What supports would you put in place? And how would you be more accepting of your differently wired brain or your trauma history and recognise you do have an extra sensitive nervous system and you do have sensory differences and that makes certain things easier. And it makes other things impossible.

What would help you accept yourself more fully? As we move into the Heal part of the Feel. Love. Heal. framework. So the Love part is that uppercase S Self, that Miraculous Self, that highest, wisest, truest part of yourself, that inner wisdom, the remembering that you deserve all good things, you’re part of nature, part of the divine. The Heal part is the collective care, the co-regulation.

I kind of did this for myself. I had a flashback in the dental chair and I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t like kind of, but I could ground, I could, luckily I’ve done a lot of work on myself, I was able to sort myself out. I didn’t feel the need to tell him any of that afterwards, but I had told them that I was scared.

I don’t know if they were gentler with me as a result. I don’t think they were worse with me. I think they were professionals.

They were really lovely. But when you think about collective care, like me asking my partner to come with me, me arranging it for a day where I was pretty sure he could. Who do you feel safest around? Who do you feel most connected to? How can you give them a bigger role in your life by asking for help, asking for support? How can you ask everyone involved with medical or dental issues to help you support whatever sensory differences you have? Maybe it’s even joking, like for me, I found it therapeutic to tell a friend, I said, I’m scared, like it just makes me laugh.

Who can you laugh and joke with? Who is your community? And if you don’t feel like you have one, let yourself imagine, let yourself dream, let yourself create something for yourself.

I hope that this episode has been helpful. I hope that if you’ve been putting off dental treatment or medical treatment, you will give yourself an enormous hug, connect with someone who feels safe and get whatever support you need in order to get yourself whatever treatment you need.

Let me know in the comments what you’re going to do differently as a result of listening to this episode. And let me know what sensory issues you have and what you do to cope. Have you tried the sunglasses in the dentist chair? Have you tried the water flosser? How does it feel? Let me know.

The more we talk about these things, the more we realise, like there was a gorgeous line in Marian Keye’s book, I mentioned in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better, but it’s one of those lines that really stuck with me. And she talks about judging, in Rachel’s Holiday, she talks about judging our insides by other people’s outsides. And I think the more I learn about my own neurodivergence and the more I work with others and talk to others, we all think we’re the weirdo and we’re not.

Like these are just differences, sensory differences. It can be a wonderful thing in many ways. We can be more sensitive.

Like I’ve cried out of happiness at a concert because the music has been so moving. I love some of the sensory differences. Let me know what helps you.

Let me know what supports you’d like more of. And if you like this episode, feel free to share it. And I look forward to sharing more with you next week.

As you think about this episode, I want you to imagine scanning your whole body, your whole energy field from the soles of your feet to your soul and notice what has come up for you as you’ve listened, as you think about it now. How might you show yourself some extra love, some extra care today, this week? Make some notes, doodle, whatever feels good. And if it feels comfortable and you want to email eve@solestosoul.ie or comment in any of the comment areas, do feel free, subscribe, rate, review, all the things.

But thank you for listening. I’m your host and producer, Eve Menezes Cunningham. Find full links in the show notes and full transcript. And let me know if you have any questions. Really looking forward to joining you again next week and have a brilliant week.