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Essay On The Orthodontist

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The Orthodontist I have terrible teeth. My teeth are not just crooked. They overlap each other, are turned in towards my tongue, and in some places never lost my baby teeth. As you can imagine, I was in terrible pain, flossing was impossible, and I got to the point where I couldn't even eat foods that were not soft or pre-cut. I finally went to the dentist, and was told I needed to schedule an appointment with an orthodontist. The orthodontist only had to glance at my teeth before informing me I needed braces. I have had them on ever since. An individual not only has health beliefs when it comes to behavior, but also illness(Ogden, J., 2017). How likely someone is to seek medical treatment is based on their beliefs on illness in severity. …show more content…

To answer I will use the five core beliefs discovered by Leventhal and colleagues (Ogden, J., 2017) to answer. The first core beliefs is Identity. I identified the problem as relating to my teeth because the symptoms, which were teeth pain and crooked teeth. The second belied is the the perceived cause of the illness. I believe the cause of my terrible teeth is genetics. Both my father and mother had severely crooked teeth and were required to get braces. The third belief is timeline. I did not believe my teeth would fix themselves, however I had hoped that my pain would go away within a few weeks of the problem presenting itself. It did not. The fourth belief is consequences. My teeth were preventing me from eating anything that was not soft or pre-cut. I understood that the consequence of my teeth being crooked would mean I would eventually be unable to eat anything other than soft foods. The fifth and final belief is curability and controllability. I believed that my teeth pain was curable if I went and saw a dentist. My beliefs and perception on the illness (my crooked teeth) led me to seek medical treatment, because I saw it as the only way my crooked teeth could be cured, and the pain I was experiencing to

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