If you experience dental anxiety, you’re not alone. Fear of dental treatment is common in patients of every age. This survey concluded that 20% of patients asked felt intense dental fear, and 20% slight to moderate dental fear. To compensate for this anxiety, dentists have become more accommodating to the wary. Aided by progressive technology, your Denver cosmetic dentist is able to sooth the fearful by making dental appointments painless. Have you been putting off treatment to avoid a dental office? Read up on Cherry Creek Dentistry’s available dental sedation to calm yourself and prepare for your next appointment.
The most unique aspect of our Denver dental office’s anesthesia offerings is IV “sleep” sedation. “Sleep dentistry” is a term you may have heard before, and while it sounds like general anesthesia, it’s much less intense. IV sedation does not render a patient unconscious, but simply relaxed. The medication used is not a sedative, but an anti-anxiety drug. IV sedation will likely be coupled with shots of local anesthesia to prevent pain at the treatment site. Under sleep sedation, you won’t feel or fear those shots. IV sedation has granted patients paralyzed by dental anxiety freedom from their fear. The relaxing effects of sleep sedation are key – as patients with dental anxiety do not fear pain, but dental treatment itself. By calming patients prior to treatment, sleep sedation allows them to remain conscious and aware while welcoming their dentist and dental work.
Our Denver sedation dentist also offers more standard local anesthesia and nitrous oxide. No matter your level of comfort with dental treatment, we have the appropriate anesthesia available. Dental fear prevents some patients from seeing the dentist for many years, until their mouths are in a state of irreversible disrepair. For patients with dental anxiety, past trauma, unpleasant dental experiences, and scary representations of dental treatment make the dentist with a frightening figure. Our dental staff is communicative, friendly, and aware of the discomfort that accompanies dental anxiety. With sedation dentistry, you may find yourself looking forward to your next dental appointment. Let this blog post be an encouragement to set up an appointment and discuss your anesthesia options with our Denver sedation dentists.
If you’d like to engage online with others who experience dental anxiety (communication is key!) check out the forums at Dental Fear Central. Again: you are not alone.