Overcoming Dental Anxiety: Reasons Sedation Dentistry May be Your Answer

The fear and anxiety associated with different dental procedures have caused a lot of people who are supposed to visit the dentist to stay back and choose to bear the pain rather than going for proper care. It is normal for people to be anxious when visiting a dentist for different dental procedures, irrespective of how basic the procedure can be. There is this mentality of pain and discomfort that usually comes into dental patients. However, sedation dentistry can be helpful in curbing this feeling and making more people care for their oral cavity.

What is Sedation Dentistry?

Sedation dentistry is simply the use of medication in order to help calm a patient and cause the patient to be relaxed when doing a dental procedure. There are different types of ways a dentist can sedate his or her patient before, during, and sometimes after the procedure. Types of sedatives that can be used are:

Nitrous oxide: The laughing gas as it is popularly called can be used to sedate patients before, during, and after the procedure. The gas is usually passed through a mask and fixed on the patient’s face. When it is inhaled, the patient feels calm, though they are still conscious. This is the only form of sedation that allows the patient to go home unaccompanied after the procedure.

Oral medications: Benzodiazepines such as diazepam can be given to the patient about an hour before the procedure which causes the patient to be less anxious and sometimes can cause the patient to fall asleep.

Intravenous injections: This type of sedation is usually given if the dentist wants the patient to fall asleep. The sedative is injected into the vein of the patient before the procedure and it keeps the patient unconscious throughout the procedure.

General anesthesia: This is the strongest of the type of sedative and it is given to keep the patient unconscious completely. It is usually used when performing invasive procedures or surgeries that the take longer hours. It is almost impossible to wake up a patient who is generally anesthetized after the procedure, the effect of the sedative will usually wear itself off.

Reasons sedative dentistry can be the answer

From what has been observed and stated earlier, it appears sedative dentistry can be a powerful solution to the anxiety issue associated with patient’s coming for a dental procedure. The following are the reasons behind this:

-Sedative dentistry keeps the patient calm and sometimes unaware of what is happening, this helps to ensure the cooperation of the patient throughout the procedure.

-With sedative dentistry, more patients can now visit the dental clinic to get a proper checkup and receive the necessary treatment since it is now certain that the pain will not be felt throughout the procedure.

Major procedures can be performed within a short time and operations can be done better with the involvement of sedative dentistry.

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