Patients are exposed every day to an avalanche of information, mostly from online or from other lay people, so they don’t know what to believe about some dental treatments.

Therefore, in these situations, when patients become confused, the best solution is to ask their dentist without hesitation.

He or she is prepared to answer the most unusual questions and is best placed to advise on the course of treatment.

The patient can express concerns about specific dental treatments but cannot dictate the course of treatment. It is the stomatologist who makes the final decisions, with the patient’s written consent.

There are a number of myths that patients don’t know what to believe and that cause them to act in a wrong way when a problem arises.

Therefore, we will present a number of myths that cause patients to become confused and possibly reluctant about dental treatment:

• Toothache can occur as a result of exposure to the current – it is not uncommon to hear about patients claiming that they ‘pulled the current’ and that is why they have toothache, especially if it is teeth located in the posterior area near the ears.

This is just a myth because toothache occurs as a result of decay, periodontal processes and hypersensitivity due to the disappearance of the surface layers of enamel.

More often than not, a patient who goes to the doctor because they ‘got a draft’ has carious disease or, if they are older, periodontal disease.

The root exposed as a result of periodontal disease may show some degree of sensitivity if the tooth is vital, i.e. if it does not have previous root canal treatments.

In the case of dental pain, the patient believes that they need to take antibiotics – this statement is false.

Toothache, for example, caused by tooth decay, is not treated with antibiotics because this type of drug treatment does not remove the causative factor.

At best, antibiotics can reduce the bacterial flora, but for effective treatment and removal of pain, the whole of the damaged dentine must be excised.

Antibiotics are only administered when there is a focus of infection, i.e. pus, which needs adjuvant drug treatment to collect.

In case of dental pain, extraction is performed – as mentioned above, dental pain can have different causes, so extraction is not used in all cases.

In fact, in the case of a patient with satisfactory oral hygiene, tooth extraction is the furthest option the doctor can consider.

If the destruction is not so extensive or if there is no fracture affecting the root, the treatment will consist of therapeutic methods that will preserve the tooth on the arch.

Patients should understand that tooth extractions are not done on request. They will only be performed by the doctor in borderline situations when there are no other conservative therapeutic indications.