Sleep Dentistry for Dental Anxiety


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Sleep Dentistry

Sleep Dentistry

Do you feel uneasy about going to the dentist? If your answer is yes, you are not alone. In fact, millions of Americans feel so nervous at the dentist they avoid going altogether. Fortunately, ways to calm those nerves to get you through your dental appointment are now widely available. One option is sleep dentistry, also known as conscious sedation.

Sleep dentistry is now popularly used to help address dental anxiety. But contrary to its name, sleep dentistry won't actually put patients to sleep. It makes use of sedatives and pain relievers that will put them into a relaxed or sleep-like state.

Sleep Easy

Sleep dentistry is often used as an anti-anxiety agent to help keep dental patients calm during dental visits, and is frequently used along with local anesthetics. Sleep dentistry can help you:

- Relax and calm your nerves
- Feel a little more comfortable with the dental procedure
- Avoid restlessness as you go through a long procedure
- Control a bad gag reflex

The goal of sedation dentistry is to minimize pain and discomfort during dental treatment. But unlike deep sedation, where dentists use general anesthesia, conscious sedation dentistry enables you to respond to speech or touch, so you can communicate any discomfort to your sedation dentist.

Relaxation Options

Aside from conscious sedation dentistry and general anesthesia, there are other types of sedation dentists use:

Inhalation Sedation -- Also known as nitrous oxide or laughing gas.
Oral Sedation -- Oral sedation drugs are usually taken either the night before the treatment or immediately before the dental appointment.
Intravenous (IV) Sedation -- IV Sedation is administered through the veins to get the sedative directly to your blood stream.

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A mixture of pain relievers and sedatives makes sleep dentistry a breeze but not quite a snore.

Sleep dentistry may just be the best thing that could ever happen to your teeth. With this type of sedation helping you overcome your fear of the dentist, you can finally give your teeth the care and attention they need and deserve. Be sure to ask your sedation dentist about all your sedation options to help calm those dental-visit nerves. To find a great dentist near you, call us right away.

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