Why Dentists Sedate Patients

Series Summary

Many people dread a trip to the dentist. They conjure images of themselves screaming and writhing in pain as an evil man in a white coat probes and pokes around their mouth. While this myth continues to haunt many of us, the dental industry has taken many steps to ensure that your next trip to the office will be a pleasant one. Stay numb and relaxed and you will feel no pain. Dentists certified in dental sedation will make sure that will not suffer during your next trip to the dentist. From laughing gas to pills to IV's, you have a variety of sedation options, depending on your medical history and dental needs.

In this free series of informative clips on sedation dentistry, an experienced dentist will tell you what you need to know about various sedation methods. What are the dangers of receiving IV sedation? Will nitrous oxide do the trick, or do you need stronger sedation? How should you prepare for your trip to the dentist? Watch these videos and become better-informed about your health treatment options.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'd like to talk to you today a little bit about sedation dentistry. We often times, you know, are proposed about what sedation dentistry is, and it's referred to in a lot of different terms, such as sleep dentistry, or conscious sedation, or sleep while the dentistry goes. Basically a bunch of terms that basically describe the same thing and the idea behind this is that many patients have a lot of fears of going to the dentist, either from a bad experience as a child or just a painful experience recently, or fear of having the unknown done to you and not really knowing what to expect. Sedation dentistry is basically an option available for most patients in order to make them more comfortable. Comfortable meaning in a more relaxed state, that you know it's a typically pain free situation, you'd usually be very relaxed, pain free and often times not remembering what's going at the dentist, which is usually comforting to the patient. Sedation dentistry is basically more tailored to the people again that afraid of needles, they have sensitive teeth, they haven't been the dentist in awhile, or even people that basically have a lot of extensive needs and they know that it's going to take multiple appointments, that it's just too time consuming in their life right now. With sedation dentistry, we can get patients very comfortable, relaxed. We can also accomplish what would normally take four to five appointments, we can often ties accomplish in one to two appointments; very comfortable for the patient, easier for the dentist to actually perform the treatment, and all together her just a more comfortable experience for the patient."