I totally avoid dentists cause the first time I went to one like 20 years ago, he drilled out my first cavity. 10 years later, the cavity had eaten away from below the filling and eaten away at what he did (he totally drilled way too much away)
I ended up losing the filling and going through 5 years of toothache and abscess cause I was scared crapless of going back to the dentist. I went through years of squeezing out puss from my gums and taking penicilin... then about 5 years ago, the tooth fell out and the whole thing fixed itself.
Now I'm missing the tooth but it's totally fixed and doesn't hurt anymore (I was quoted $3000 bucks early on to fix it...which I declined.

Now I've got my second cavity doing the same thing. I'm thinking...ok... I can go in and get it pulled... or just take lots of painkillers and put up with it long enough to fix itself.

If history proves it right... I'll go through about a year of pain that I can control with Tylenol 3's.... then the tooth will break off and fix itself.

alternatively...I can go to a dentist and have the friggin thing just pulled.

Personally.... I'll suffer the pain and being able to use the tooth in the meantime to chew food. I can handle a year or two of painkillers and meantime, I can use all my teeth. Later when it falls out... I can save dentists costs.