If you experience anxiety every time you need to visit your dentist, you are not alone with these feelings. Statistics reveal that nearly 50 % of all US patients must deal with serious anxiety prior dental visits. Further to that, nearly 15% of American adults are avoiding going to the dentist because of fear from dental treatment.

One of the best options for overcoming anxiety and having a relaxed experience at your Burien dental office is oral sedation. It is a great solution for all dental procedures – from simple ones, like tooth cleaning to more complicated and invasive treatments.

What is Sedation Dentistry?

Sedation dentistry is the practice of using sedatives to help patients relax during dental treatment. It is often called “sleep dentistry,” although that’s not entirely accurate. Patients are usually awake except for those who are under general anesthesia. Therefore, the term “comfort dentistry” is more accurate to describe sedation dentistry.

What is Oral Sedation?

Oral Sedation is a sedation method that uses sedative medications to slow down your central nervous system. Unlike other forms of sedation, oral sedation keeps you awake but you’re less responsive to things occurring around you and are also less responsive to pain. Your Burien dentist could prescribe an oral sedative to help you feel calmer and relaxed before and during your visit.

Oral sedation can range from minimal to moderate. For minimal sedation, you take a pill, typically Halcion, usually about an hour before the procedure. A larger dose may be given to produce moderate sedation.

Will Oral Sedation be a good option for me?

Oral sedation can be the perfect solution for you, if you:

• Experience severe dental anxiety
• Have extremely sensitive teeth
• Have low pain threshold
• Have a strong gag reflex
• Need extensive dental work done

What are the benefits of Oral Sedation?

Some of the main benefits of oral sedation include:

• It is simple, very effective and completely safe
• It has almost no side effects
• No needles or shots are involved in giving this type of anesthesia
• It allows even highly anxious patients to get great dental care
• The dentist could work more efficiently, often getting more work done

If you get anxious when you think about visiting your dentist or you just want to take advantage of comfort dentistry, you can rely on the professional approach and experience of Dr. Lee from Burien Family Dental Care. Dr. Lee is a Burien dental expert, whom you can trust for creating a brilliant smile for you, without pain and discomfort.

Oral sedation for teens

Contemporary sedation dentistry has enabled dentist to treat children and teenagers who would otherwise be too anxious about receiving proper dental treatment. Burien dentists can nowadays perform more invasive procedures, such as filling cavities or extracting teeth, in conjunction with oral sedation. Oral sedation is a choice of many parents, who would like their children to receive great dental care without discomfort and unpleasant memories for lifetime.