Do you face anxiety when you go to the dentist’s office? If so, you’re not alone. The NCBI estimates that 36% of the population experiences dental anxiety, with an additional 12% of people suffering from extreme dental fear.
Dental anxiety is a common fear, but it’s crucial not to succumb to it. Dental health has a significant impact on your overall health. Dental issues can even affect your cardiovascular health.
The question is how to deal with dental anxiety in a healthy way. Fortunately, there are several treatment options. One effective choice is to use sedation.
Sedation may seem like an extreme approach to overcoming dental anxiety. However, it’s a safe process that yields excellent results. We’ll discuss how this process works in this guide.
Sedation for Mild Dental Anxiety
Many dentists can treat mild dental anxiety with nitrous oxide. You may hear this chemical referred to as “laughing gas.”
Dentists can regulate this gas to provide the perfect amount of sedation to combat your anxiety. Dentists using this sedation before administering a local anesthetic can make the injection much more comfortable.
Using nitrous oxide allows you to drive to your appointment. Generally, this sedation wears off quickly.
As such, you can also drive home after the appointment. However, your dentist may mix nitrous oxide with other sedative techniques to produce deeper sedation. In these cases, you may want a backup plan for getting home.
Sometimes, dentists may prescribe an oral sedative to treat your dental anxiety. This approach often helps people relax before going to their appointment. However, these sedatives make it unsafe to drive yourself to the dentist’s office.
Treating Extreme Dental Anxiety
As mentioned before, 12% of Americans face extreme dental anxiety. These fears often require a deeper level of sedation than milder forms.
These sedation techniques generally render people semi-conscious or unconscious during their procedure. During this time, you’ll feel no pain or discomfort.
In many cases, this technique can cause your anxiety level to decrease during subsequent visits. This reduced fear often stems from the positive experience with your most recent dental visit.
Most people develop dental anxiety cases after a negative experience at the dentist’s office. Often, these cases stem from childhood traumas that linger into adulthood.
Your sedated dentist’s office experience can help to reverse this trauma by providing a positive, painless experience. However, you can always request this procedure again if your anxiety continues.
Our Dental Sedation Technique
There’s no need to continue your fear of dentist appointments when you come to our office! We provide an advanced dental sedation experience to ensure you remain comfortable and pain-free during your visit.
Our approach begins the day before your appointment. First, we’ll take your blood pressure and oxygen levels. Then, we’ll prescribe a combination of anesthetics appropriate for your medical history.
The next day, we’ll send a driver to your home to bring you to the office. Before you begin your procedure, we’ll sedate you with gas and put you to sleep. You’ll remain asleep until the dentist visit ends.