Introducing Intravenous Sedation
If you’ve been put off treatment due to dental phobia, IV sedation is here to help.
Most of you will probably be looking forward to the Christmas and new year break and spending time with relatives. There will also, we suspect, be some people who are trying to put thoughts about a particular dental problem to the back of their minds, hoping that it won’t flare up and spoil the seasonal festivities.
The reality is that a significant number of people simply find going to the dentist an ordeal, in some cases even including check ups. This, in turn, makes it more likely that these patients will eventually need to have fairly extensive treatment to restore a damaged or badly decayed tooth. Even then, the most anxious patients will put off contacting their local Canterbury dentist until they can stand the pain no more.
We do understand this concern of course, and to help our patients overcome it, we are now pleased to provide IV sedation at Bradley and Partners Dental & Implant Clinic.
What is IV Sedation?
This is a sedative that will help to keep you calm and relaxed during your dental procedure. It is administered into a vein and will quickly act to make you relaxed and able to receive your treatment without the fear and anxiety that you might otherwise experience.
Although you may have heard this described as ‘sleep dentistry’ in some places online, this is not correct. This is not the ‘laughing gas’ of old that puts you to sleep. You will remain fully conscious and able to communicate with the dentist while the treatment takes place. This is important as some treatments will benefit from the ability to communicate during the procedure itself.
This is a perfectly safe relaxant when administered by the specially trained dentists we have in our team.
Preparation for sedation
You will be given full instructions before you come to your appointment but there are a few things to consider.
Not everyone will be able to have dental sedation and pregnant women especially should avoid this. Some other medical conditions may also affect your ability to receive it and it is important that you are honest with us about any medical condition you have any medications that you take for it. Most people can have it perfectly safely though.
One thing that you will need to do is to bring a responsible adult with you. If you are very nervous, they may come into the treatment room with you, but will need to leave once the sedative takes effect and you are relaxed and ready for your procedure. They will also need to make sure that you get home safely. Under absolutely no circumstances should you drive. This would be highly dangerous and could very easily cause accidents. Even taking public transport home should be avoided. So please have someone with you to make sure that you get home safely or somewhere that you can relax to allow the effects to wear off.
After treatment
The effects of the sedative you will have been given will wear off slowly and could take the rest of the day to wear off completely. It is best to plan for this and make sure that you have a suitably prepared meal or similar so that you aren’t trying to cook while still under the effect. You should also take the day off work and even when you start to feel a bit better, remember that your reflexes may still not yet be quite back to what they were. You should avoid anything that might entail risk, such as riding a bike, going to the gym etc. Please “take it easy” until the effects have fully worn off.
Dental implants
IV sedation is extremely helpful for nervous dental patients but can also be a useful aid for longer procedures such as dental implants. This can take longer than many procedures and even non nervous patients sometimes feel a little stressed by being in the chair for a long period of time. Sedation can be a useful tool here, enabling you to feel relaxed and also allowing the dentist to carry out the procedure as efficiently as possible.
If you live in the Canterbury area of Kent and are anxious about receiving dental treatment, we can help you. There is no need to put up with the pain and inconvenience of a tooth that you know requires treatment but are too afraid to contact a dentist about it. If you would like to find out more about how intravenous sedation can help you, or have any questions about it, please call Bradley and Partners Dental & Implant Clinic on 01227 463529 for more information.
This will be our last blog of the year, so please allow us to wish all of our patients a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!