Why Do Dentists Do Sedation?

If providing dental treatments was as comfortable as getting your hair cut, dentists wouldn’t consider wasting time giving you anesthesia or sedation to numb pain or ease fears in your mind. Unfortunately, your dental anxiety compels dentists to do sedation to ensure you receive timely essential dental treatments to maintain your dental and overall health.

Sedation is a technique to keep you completely comfortable during dental treatments, whether minor or significant, to leave you feeling the dental therapy was a breeze even after spending hours in the dentist’s chair. Therefore dentists provide sedation for your comfort and to offer you various therapies like routine cleanings and the treatments like teeth replacements or smile makeovers.

Why Is Sedation Done?

Would you consider visiting the dentist near you to find relief from an excruciating toothache if the professional didn’t offer dental sedation? Instead, you would probably purchase over-the-counter painkillers to manage the discomfort and allow the infection in your mouth spread deeper until it needs intensive therapies.

Why do you fear dental visits to endure excruciating toothaches by using medications that provide temporary relief when dentists offer you a remedy providing a permanent solution to the toothache and helping you preserve the tooth? You find it beneficial to visit dentists offering sedation, discuss your fears with them, and receive the treatments you need by taking the sedatives provided by the dentist.

Dentists do sedation primarily to ease your dental fears and make you feel your dental visit was enjoyable instead of fearful. Sedation benefits if you are highly anxious about dental visits, have a fear of needles, a gag reflex, claustrophobia while sitting in the dentist’s chair, or have special physical, cognitive, and behavioral needs.

If sedation helps relieve your anxiety, it also enables dentists to complete more procedures in fewer appointments because the medicines they provide relax you entirely to the point of sleepiness but not unconscious.

What Is Sedation Dentistry and the Different Types of Sedation Procedures?

Sedation dentistry is a method that helps establish a relaxed and calm state depending on your specific needs. The factors dentists consider are your level of anxiety, the duration of your procedure, your health history, and your personal preferences.

There are different levels of sedation dentistry dentists provide after considering the factors mentioned above. They are:

• Nitrous Oxide: Alternatively called laughing gas, nitrous oxide is an inhalable gas provided through a mask over your nose to start relaxing you within three to five minutes. Dentist 77379 adjusts the sedation level you receive by manipulating the dosage throughout your procedure. After completing your therapy, the dentist provides oxygen to help the nitrous to dissipate out of your system. You can drive back home or work because nitrous oxide leaves your body quickly.
• Oral Conscious Sedation: dentists provide oral conscious sedation by prescribing medications like tranquilizers, antidepressants, muscle relaxants, et cetera in pill or syrup form to have an hour before your appointment. If your child needs dental treatments and is anxious about it, they receive liquid sedation helpful for calming them.
• Oral conscious sedation leaves you exhausted and might even cause you to sleep during dental treatment. However, you maintain a level of consciousness for cooperation and safety and can communicate with your dentist if required during your procedure. However, it would help if you had a caregiver accompany you to and from the dental practice because the sedation affects your motor skills, making you incapable of operating vehicles.
• Deep Sedation: If you need deep sedation, you receive IV sedation dentistry in Spring, TX, where the dentist provides sedative medications into your bloodstream through an IV line. Your dentist monitors your heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen levels and adjusts the doses at any point besides using reversal techniques to wake you up after your treatment. If you receive IV sedation, you will likely sleep in the dentist’s chair without memory of your treatment after waking up. IV sedation is optimal if you have severe dental anxiety or you are undergoing lengthy procedures.

Benefits of Sedation Dentistry

Sedation dentistry helps ease your anxiety and phobia, assisting you in remaining calm and comfortable when receiving dental treatments. It also enables your dentist to work faster when you are comfortably relaxed. Best of all, it results in fewer appointments and encourages you to schedule dental appointments frequently instead of avoiding dental visits to compromise the health of your mouth and smile. Finally, sedation dentistry induces a comfortable feeling to receive the essential dental care you need and deserve.

Dr. Paul Graf, DDS — Houston Cosmetic and Family Dentistry in Spring, TX, provides sedation dentistry to adults and children with dental anxiety to help them receive essential dental treatments. If you fear dentists, you help yourself by visiting this practice to receive minor or significant dental treatments without fear or dental anxiety.