Taking good care of our health is vitally important in life. Having a routine annual physical, getting medical attention if you have a chronic problem and visiting the dentist for twice a year cleanings are all a must. For many people, a visit to the dentist is a fairly easy event. There’s always a little apprehension, as we wait to find out if we have any cavities. Overall, though, you leave the checkup with everything taken care of and your teeth feeling sparkling clean too.
For some people, though, an upcoming dental visit may evoke anxiety and apprehension. This may be the result of past issues with extensive dental procedures or pain that might have arisen from the work that was done. In some instances, the fear of going to the dentist may have come when they were a child. If someone has these feelings, they may try to skip dental visits, which will only worsen their dental health. Fortunately, there is a way to make visits to the dentist easy and stress free.
What is Sedation Dentistry
When you schedule a visit with a sedation dentist, you’ll have a completely different experience that you would have had with a traditional dental care provider. While there are many types of sedation that are available, the most common is OCS, or Oral Conscious Sedation. Using this technique, there are no IV drugs needed.
The patient receives an oral medication and is safely and effectively sedated. Often, Triazolam is used as the sedative. It’s similar in nature to Xanax or Valium, but acts quicker and can be eliminated from your system in a shorter time too. This makes it ideal for the duration of your dental procedures.
Benefits of Sedation Dentistry
There are several key benefits of sedation dentistry. First, the medications given have an amnesic affect. Instead of feeling constant fear and anxiety during your visit, there’s a feeling of calm and for many patients a loss of memory about the dental visit. For instance, a dental patient may think that an appointment that lasted several hours was only 30 minutes.
Since the patient is blissfully free of worries or fear, and totally relaxed, it’s often possible to take care of several procedures in a single visit. This further reduces the anxiety that would have arisen from having to schedule multiple appointments to take care of issues. There are long term benefits too, as the mind no longer maps dental appointments as causing discomfort or invoking fear.
Pain Free Dental Procedures
If an individual has sensitive gums, dental procedures may often cause them pain. Injections to numb the area being worked on would also be very difficult for them, and the fear of pain may cause then to postpone or skip the work they need entirely.
With sedation dentistry, you avoid all pain and instead of feeling totally stressed out you wake up from the process in a restful state. This makes a huge difference, as patients who experience this improved way of getting dental care are far more likely to schedule the visits they need to take care of their oral health.
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