Sedation Dentistry, Dr. Schumann

Do you ever have a toothache which you try and ignore just so that you wouldn’t have to go to the dentist? Have you ever looked for excuses to avoid your dental appointments time and time again? Do you panic while in the waiting room of the dentist’s clinic? If you answer yes to any or all the above questions, you are one of millions of people in the world who have some degree of dental phobia.

You will agree that sitting in the dentist’s chair waiting for a big ugly needle to enter your gums is not the best feeling in the world. Hearing a drill inside your mouth, literally echoing inside your head is not the most soothing sound is it? In fact thinking of the injections and the drilling and scraping is probably more anxiety inducing than anything else.

So what do you understand by the word anxiety? Very simply, anxiety is a feeling of apprehension, worry and uneasiness. In relation to dentistry, anxiety is the result of what a person thinks and feels about the experience, including past experiences with the dentist.

The best way in which you can deal with this anxiety is to opt for Anxiety-Free Dentistry. This may sound nearly impossible but with so many advances in oral health techniques, anxiety-free dentistry is very much a reality.

The primary way in which anxiety-free dentistry is provided is through sedation. When choosing anxiety-free dentistry with sedation, you will have to be a healthy adult above 18 yrs of age. This means no alcoholism, drugs, medication, antidepressants, psychosis medication etc. Sedation is also not given to women who are pregnant or nursing.

In this form of anxiety-free dentistry, the patient is absolutely relaxed (almost asleep) and experiences no anxiety about the pain. This type of anxiety-free dentistry allows long and complicated procedures to be done in a couple of hours as opposed to several sessions.

Other forms of anxiety-free dentistry involve keeping the patient conscious but numbing the area or part of the gum that will be injected. Among these, one is the DentiPatch that looks like a bandaid and is applied to the gums to numb it. This can be used for small procedures or to numb the area for an anaesthetic injection. Another tool for anxiety-free dentistry is called the Magic Wand. This technology eliminates the pain associated with injections in the mouth and the patient feels only the pressure. Thus the anxiety is reduced by a large amount when there is no fear of pain.

Anxiety-free dentistry is among the latest in patient-friendly approaches. Dentists understand the anxiousness that patients experience and thus anxiety-free dentistry attempts to reduce this anxiety and helps the person feel comfortable and calm.