As a dentist, I hear many of my patients come up to me and say that they do not visit dental clinics regularly because they have dental phobia. But there is a lot more to it. People often use dental anxiety, fear, and phobia to mean the same thing. But let me tell you, it's not. Dental anxiety/ fear is fear of the unknown. Many people have dental anxiety, which is the fear of dental treatments involving blood, needles, drilling, the anticipation of pain during and after treatment, etc. People with Dental anxiety/ fear end up visiting dental clinics only when the pain is unbearable, or they have swelling which does not go away by over the counter medicines( Medicines that are readily available in any medical shop and which do not require any doctor's prescription ) Now Let's say, for example. You are walking by, and you see a dental clinic… and suddenly, your heart starts pounding; you break out in a cold sweat, unable to move an inch on even a glimpse of a dental clinic or even hearing that D-word… Then you have dental phobia. Dental phobia, also known as odontophobia, means an extreme and irrational fear of dental treatment and even dentists. Dental phobia is a severe anxiety disorder where the patient has an extreme fear of a situation that is not harmful. The patient knows this but cannot do anything about it at that particular moment. People with dental phobia avoid going to the dentist even in extreme pain. Mike Gow, a dentist from Glasgow and founder of the International Society for Dental Anxiety Management, uses the following analogy: “ If you were standing on Bondi Beach, looking out into the water, and seeing a dark shape moving around, and you avoid entering into the water, then do you have a shark phobia? No, because you’re on Bondi Beach, and it’s a suspicious dark shape that could be a shark. If you’re at your local swimming pool and see a dark shape in the water and decide not to get in, that’s a phobia. That’s excessive. Now, somebody who has only had difficult and bad experiences at the dentist, their only reality has been on Bondi Beach. And their phobic response is legitimate. If their recollection of what happened during this horrible appointment is accurate, then wanting to stay away from that situation for me is entirely rational; that is not a phobic response. Now the difference, and the crucial part, is making sure that when they go to a dentist, they see a dentist who is as safe as the swimming pool. So it’s the environment that becomes important rather than the phobia. The phobia has protected them from all dentists when it’s just the dentists that are not nice to them that they must avoid.” According to An Epidemiological study done in South India, about 3% of people had Dental phobia, while 51.8% were identified as highly anxious, and 45.2% were less anxious. However, to be honest, most of my patients who avoid visiting dental clinics are mainly because of mere negligence towards dental and oral health!!