If there’s one thing adults fear more than taxes, it’s their regular dental checkups! If you’re like most people, you too might find yourself making a litany of excuses to not go through with it!

Visiting a dentist can be a daunting thought for many. According to a study, 36% of the population has dental anxiety!

While many appreciate that being dentally fit is important to one’s overall well-being, unfortunately, dental anxiety can be debilitating, making one entirely avoid a visit to the dentist.

Fortunately, our dentists in York at Fresh Dental Smile Clinic are experienced and highly qualified to provide sedation dentistry.

Exploring the benefits of Dental Sedation over a free consultation with us can significantly help patients overcome their worst dental fears. It can also help them feel confident in commencing with necessary dental treatment to restore dental health, and even carry out cosmetic dental treatment to achieve a dream smile makeover.

Let us explore Dental sedation in further detail.

What is Sedation Dentistry?

Sedation dentistry is an approach that uses medications and other methods to alleviate stress during the procedures for pain-free dentistry and help manage dental anxiety and phobia. Patients are gradually and comfortably placed into a dream-like state, making them very relaxed and largely unaware and cooperative with dental treatment.

Sedation dentistry is used for patients who-

• Suffer from dental anxiety or phobia
• Need multiple simultaneous procedures
• Undergo complex dental surgeries and procedures like root canals or removal of broken teeth, wisdom tooth extractions and dental implant placements.

Types of Sedation Dentistry-

While an emergency dentist near you practising sedation dentistry can use one of the several medications for sedating, all of them fall into three categories —- nitrous oxide, oral sedation, and IV sedation.

#1- Nitrous Oxide: Commonly known as the laughing gas, nitrous oxide is the most popular and lightest form of sedation used by dentists. Nitrous oxide is odourless, colourless, and non-irritable to the nose and lungs. The patients feel relaxed within two minutes after the dentist places a face mask on them. An excellent advantage of nitrous oxide is that it is eliminated from the body within three to five minutes once the mask is removed, meaning you can easily drive yourself back home.

#2- Oral Sedation: Another approach used in sedation dentistry is oral sedation, which uses anti-anxiety medications. These medicines reduce the patient’s brain activity pertaining to fear and anxiety. They keep you calm and relaxed, allowing dental treatment to take place smoothly. Oral sedation is carried out before and during dental procedures to put the patient in a relaxed state. These medications are not quickly eliminated from your body, and you will require someone else to drive you back home.

#3- Intravenous Sedation ( IV sedation): This is the most effective and profound form of dental sedation. Patients love the effects of this sedation and are often pleasantly surprised at how easy completing their dental treatment is with it. An anaesthetist or a dual-qualified dentist typically carries out IV sedation. At Fresh Dental, we can provide on-site sedation as our dental team are qualified to offer intravenous dental sedation for nervous patients, thus relaxing and calming them for pain-free dental treatment to take place.