Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
A great number of people simply do not go to the dentist because they are afraid. It may be because they had a bad experience when they where a child and some people have no idea why they are afraid. Whatever the reason, we have seen MANY individuals wait until their teeth were almost killing them because of infections before they would come to the dentist.
In the old days we used to send patients to the hospital and give them general anesthesia to do anything. Now we have the capabilities to give general anesthesia in the luxury of our offices.
When I started getting into more comprehensive type dentistry, we needed to find a way to sedate those individuals who had a fear of dentistry to get them through the procedures, because the procedures they needed done could be perceived as “frightening”, not necessarily painful, but frightening. Sedation provides a solution for eliminating that fear.
Oral Sedation
Oral sedation is very popular in dentistry right now but I use it in a limited manner because it is not as predictable or as safe. You can’t predict how it is going to be absorbed or how it is going to affect one person versus another. and you can’t just keep giving them more medications one after another because it takes 30 minutes to an hour for that medication to be taken up in the stomach and to get in the bloodstream. So you could run the risk of over sedation if pills are given to close together.
IV Sedation
The IV is always much safer because once the patient has receive the medication through the IV, within 60 to 90 seconds you know exactly how it is going to affect that person and then you can titrate it (control concentration) so that you get the proper sedation without over sedation, making this sedation method totally safe.
If someone has been avoiding the dentist because of fear, IV sedation is an option because it allows us to do a lot of dentistry in 1 or 2 appointments. and get them back to good health. Fear of the dentist is based upon many things. One of them is lack of trust – so a patient has to come in and learn how they are going to react with that particular dentist to develop trust. We work with our patients on developing trust, especially those who are fearful because that alleviates a good portion of their fear- if they know they are working with someone who cares about them. You can’t get that kind of care in a clinical situation…where there are many patients waiting for that dental chair. For this reason we provide personalized, private, one-patient-at-a-time dental care.
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Posted in Cosmetic Dentistry, Pain relief, Restorative Dentistry, sedation | No Comments »
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
A large segment of the population does not seek proper dental care because of fear. Today there are several options that make dentistry much more comfortable. For years nitrous oxide has been available, which is an analgesic gas that raises the pain threshold and alleviates anxiety. This is a good solution for many patients and the gas is out of the system within just a few minutes of breathing oxygen afterwards, so a designated driver is not necessary after treatment.
Some individuals are reluctant to even just have their teeth cleaned because of fear. For these individuals we have oral medication that can be taken 45 minutes to an hour before their appointment that will alleviate their anxiety. The medication is strong enough to really do an effective job so these patients will need a designated driver after treatment.
If we are going to be doing significant dentistry on an individual who is not comfortable sitting for an extended amount of time or has an extreme fear, IV sedation is available. This is a safe method of sedating the patient so that they will not have an unpleasant memory of the treatment. They will not be unconscious, as with general anesthesia, so there are not extreme dangers associated with this sedation. Patients can still respond and inform us if something is bothering them so that we can respond accordingly.
Sedation dentistry allows us to help individuals who have had years of neglect and sometimes get them back to good oral health in just one or two appointments. Once they are healthy, our goal is to keep them in good oral health.
Tags: aesthetic, AR, Arkansas, Bella Vista, Bentonville, centerton, cold sensitivity, cosmetic, cracked teeth, cracked tooth, dental sedation, dental specialist, dentist, dentistry, Eureka Springs, Farmington, Fayetteville, fear of dentist, fear of pain, fillings, heat sensitivity, irritation, iv sedation, Joplin, lowell, mouth, mouth pain, neosho, Northwest Arkansas, NWA, oral sedation, Pain relief, pain when cheiwing, pain when chewing, personalized, quality, Rogers, sedation, sedation dentistry, senstitive teeth, specialist, Springdale, teeth, tooth, tooth pain, tooth sensitivity, treatment, trouble chewing
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