Understanding Oral Conscious Sedation: Is It Right for You?
Dental anxiety affects more than one in three (36%) of Americans, keeping many of them from getting the quality dental care they need. If you feel afraid of going to the dentist, you need a caring team to help you with your dental anxiety. Compassionate dentists understand the fear that many of their patients may have and use methods to combat it. Dr. Brian Oyler and the team at Oyler Family Dentistry understand how anxiety may impact their patients and offer oral conscious sedation as a safe, trusted means of making dental visits easy, pain-free, and relaxing.
Sedation dentistry is one of the many ways dentists address dental anxiety, and is certainly an effective solution. There are several options, including oral medications and nitrous oxide. These sedation types help to relax your body, neutralizing the fast heart rate and rapid breathing that accompany surges in anxiety.
The major difference between oral and nitrous oxide sedation is when each treatment takes effect. Your dentist will administer nitrous oxide during your appointment. With oral sedation, you take the pill before you have someone drive you to the dentist.
Both methods keep you awake but at ease during your dental appointment. During your preliminary visit, the dentist will plan your treatment and help you to choose the right sedation method for your needs.
Conscious oral sedation is one of the simplest forms of sedation dentistry. You will have a prescription for a pill to take several hours before your dental appointment. Because the medicine makes you feel more relaxed and sleepier, you will feel calmer and more relaxed during treatment.
Conscious oral sedation is great for those who have severe dental anxiety, especially leading up to the appointment, because it starts to work to relax you even before you arrive at the office.
Oral sedation is a medicine designed to help you to feel calm and relaxed. Because it does not induce sleep, you will remain awake during your visit. However, most people who have conscious oral sedation don't remember much of their dental visits.
Even though you will stay awake during your appointment, the oral medication will make you feel very sleepy. For safety, your dentist will require that you have someone to drive you to the appointment and to take you home.
Oral sedation helps you to feel at ease during the dental visit. Your dentist uses local anesthetics to numb the treatment area, which may come in injected or topical application formats. These anesthetics help to ensure that you have dental treatment that is nearly pain free.
The relaxed feeling you have from the oral sedation medicine will help you to undergo the procedure, including local anesthetic administration, without fear.
The best way to know whether sedation dentistry is the best option for you is to talk to your dentist. They will go through the sedation dentistry options available for your dental procedure and help you choose the right method for your situation. Be open and honest when telling the dentist about your level of dental anxiety because this information will help them to find the right sedation method for you.
Your dentist must always consider treatment suitability in all cases, whether selecting the best procedure for your dental issues or choosing a sedation method to ease your anxiety. Therefore, you can trust the advice they give you when recommending sedation options for you.
You deserve to have great dental care delivered by a professional who recognizes the importance of putting patient comfort first. You'll find this perfect blend of understanding and advanced care at Oyler Family Dentistry in Greendale, IN. Contact us today to schedule your appointment and to find out more about how sedation dentistry can make your visit a more relaxed one.
We look forward to meeting you. Call (812) 537-4272 or request an appointment online to set up your first visit. We’ll be in touch soon.