Sedation dentistry has helped many different types of patients get the preventive, restorative, and cosmetic treatments that they need. Our Orland Park sedation dentists are here with some information on when sedation is used, and why. We hope that this short explanation helps you consider if/how sedation might be helpful for you, specifically.
Perhaps the most obvious use of sedation dentistry is to help the patient avoid pain in the dentist’s chair. Considering that fear of experiencing pain is one of the primary reasons that anxious patients report for avoiding dental treatment, this is obviously a big deal. Sedation dentistry can both dull your pain receptors and—if the sedative has amnesic properties—keep you from remembering your time in the dentist’s chair post-treatment.
Sedation dentistry is also crucial for many dental anxiety sufferers. There are many different types and levels of dental anxiety. Some people experience such severe anxiety that they are unable to even make it into the dentist’s office; for these people, oral conscious sedation can make all of the difference. Oral conscious sedation allows the patient to start feeling calm and comfortable before he or she even leaves the house. The patient takes a small dentist-prescribed pill about an hour before his or her appointment, and almost immediately begins to feel stress-free. If dental anxiety has been keeping you from pursuing dental treatment, talk to your dentist about whether sedation may be able to help.
Sedation treatment can also help our dental team get more done in a shorter period of time. Here’s how it works: when a patient is using sedation, he or she does not become fatigued as quickly during treatment. This means that we need to take fewer breaks, and we do not have to break up treatments into as many individual appointments.
As you can see, sedation treatment has a number of applications in modern dentistry. Our Orland Park sedation dentists can give you all of the information that you need about relaxation treatment—give us a call to get started!