The Benefits of Sedation Dentistry

Dental visits induce anxiety in many, encouraging them to put off visits to the dentist early before they have aggravated issues in their mouths. If you are one among the many fearful of visiting dentists for routine exams or of dealing with other dental problems, sedation dentistry can help you with your dental anxiety making dental visits enjoyable for you and providing you freedom from severe dental problems.

Sedation dentistry helps provide anxiety free and relaxing experience when receiving dental treatments. The technique enables you to acquire essential dental care by putting behind the all-too-common dental phobia to care for your teeth and mouth and keep it healthy.

Types of Sedation Dentistry

You can receive different types of dental sedation depending on your dental anxiety. The dental procedure you need, the duration of the therapy, and your dental anxiety levels determine which type of dental sedation best suits your needs. It helps if you discuss your fears with the dentist in Leesburg, VA, to help them choose the sedation suitable for your needs and use it during the specific procedure you need. The different types of sedation dentistry are mentioned below for your reference:

Oral Sedatives

The dentist in Leesburg prescribes oral sedatives if you must undergo moderate or severe dental therapies to enhance your smile or eliminate infections from your mouth. The tranquilizers, depressants, and antianxiety medications are best taken an hour before your appointment with the dentist for your procedure. Oral sedatives do not make you sleep but keep you tired or exhausted when you reach the dental office. In addition, the sedatives enable the dentist to perform intensive procedures like root canals, dental implants, et cetera in fewer appointments than average without you moving around in the dentist’s chair.

Whether you receive moderate or deep oral sedatives for the therapy scheduled, the dentist injects local anesthesia in the mouth for pain management because the oral sedatives only help manage anxiety. However, you don’t realize the sensation of the injection in your mouth because you are entirely relaxed.

Inhaled Minimal Sedation

If you are fearful of minor procedures like routine cleanings, you can express it to sedation dentistry in Leesburg, VA, who ensure they provide you with inhaled minimal sedation giving you nitrous oxide to breathe to help you relax within minutes. Nitrous oxide also called laughing gas, relaxes you in minutes, dissipates quickly soon after the dentist switches off the gas, and provides oxygen to help you recover from its effects. As a result, you can leave the dentist’s office soon after receiving your treatment without needing help from others.

Intravenous Moderate Sedation

Intravenous moderate sedation can make you feel like you are asleep similar to oral sedatives. However, the route of administration is different with intravenous sedation administered through a vein in the arm to provide an instantaneous effect and best help with shorter dental procedures. A side effect of intravenous sedation is the amnesia it causes, making you think your process lasted mere minutes when you might spend more time in the dentist’s chair.

General Anesthesia

If you need surgical procedures and are not suitable for sedation dentistry near you, your dentist might suggest general anesthesia for your process. However, unlike sedation dentistry, which keeps you awake general anesthesia renders you unconscious, leaving you with no recollection of your visit. Therefore, you must remain in the dentist’s office until you recover from the anesthetics before you can proceed home with help from a friend or trusted family member who must stay with you for an additional few hours after reaching your home.

Except for nitrous oxide, all other types of sedation dentistry require help driving to and from the dentist’s office because the sedatives make you incapable of operating vehicles or machinery. However, they enable you to receive intensive or severe treatments you need but are avoiding because of dental anxiety.

The Benefits

A significant benefit of sedation dentistry is the feeling that your dental procedure lasted merely a few minutes when you might have spent hours in the dental office. The dentist would have completed complex dental procedures, generally needing multiple appointments in fewer hours than average. Best of all, sedation dentistry would have addressed your dental anxiety keeping you away from dentists and making you more likely to receive essential dental care by visiting dentists without hesitation.

If you have apprehensions about dental visits because of dental phobia, we suggest you discuss your fears with Jane O Stewart, who will explain the modalities of sedation dentistry to ensure you receive any treatments needed without skipping dental visits.

The Dental Co. of Leesburg suggests sedation dentistry for patients with dental anxiety, including children, to calm their fears of dentists. Discuss your concerns with this practice to receive necessary dental treatments instead of avoiding dentists to have severe problems with your teeth and mouth.