Treatment for Dental Anxiety: Keeping You Calm During Visits
Dental anxiety refers to cases in which someone is in a constant state of worry, agitation, and fear when they visit the dentist’s office. This is a highly unpleasant experience, and it can be potentially unsafe as well. Your anxiety could lead you you flinching or reeling during a procedure, which could cause some injury to the teeth and gums in the process.
To combat dental anxiety, our Los Algodones, Baja California dental practice is proud to offer sedation dentistry. Let’s consider the dangers linked to dental anxiety and then explain how sedation dentistry can benefit you.
Causes of Dental Anxiety
Dental anxiety is often the result of negative experiences at the dentist’s office in the past, often in childhood. A bad dental visit or a serious of painful, unpleasant visits to the dentist at a young age can make you feel afraid to see the dentist again.
Problems Associated with Dental Anxiety
The biggest problem with dental anxiety is that people wind up avoiding trips to the dentist. It’s been estimated that around 9 percent to 15 percent of American suffer from dental anxiety that’s so pronounced that they refuse to see the dentist.
If you miss regular checkups, minor dental problems could wind up becoming major health and wellness issues. Teeth are weakened and become more likely to fracture, and your risk for gum disease and root canal infections is increased.
What Is Sedation Dentistry?
Sedation dentistry refers to techniques that dentists can use to help patients reach a state of relaxation. This doesn’t mean full unconsciousness, mind you, like the use of general anesthesia. Instead, a milder form of sedation is used to keep a patient conscious but relaxed.
While in this relaxed state, the patient is responsive but calm. Dentists can perform the work they need to without the patient feeling nervous or afraid.
How Does Sedation Dentistry Work?
We have a trained anesthesiologist on-site who can administer sedation medications intravenously. IV sedation allows the sedation drug to act quickly. Patients will have the IV placed and notice their worries and anxieties melt away rather quickly. Throughout this process, the patient will be monitored to ensure that they are safe during the process.
The Benefits of Sedation Dentistry
Sedation dentistry relieves any patients who were once afraid to see their dentist. Thanks to the IV drugs, the patient achieve a state of clam that overcomes any anxieties that they may have faced. Now with this level of relaxation achieved, regular dental visits or more involved dental procedures will pose no problems.
A Focus on Patient Wellness and Comfort
In addition to using IV sedation, our practice will help make patients feel as calm as possible during each visit. We will explain procedures ahead of time so patients know what to expect and feel at ease. A gentle chair side manner combined with advanced pain management and prevention technology will go a long way toward overcoming a patient’s dental care fears.
Learn More About Sedation Dentistry
For more information about dentistry that is free from fear and anxiety, be sure to contact an experienced dentist about your options for treatment. We will work with you to ensure your visit to Cosmetic & Implant Dentistry Center is relaxing and positive.