Many new advancements and a great deal of careful attention from Dr. Smith makes the unpleasant experience of dental treatment a thing of the past.

Equal attention is given to keeping you calm and comfortable leading up to your dental care as is given to ensuring that treatment is both pain and anxiety free.

Anesthesia for Dental Fears and Anxiety

Many of us are anxious or even fearful about having dental care. This is something LEARNED, usually from very real previous experience. Perhaps as a child you had a bad experience, perhaps as an adult. Unfortunately it is more common than not.

These traumatic experiences lodge in our subconscious, and when we have to undergo dental care as an adult, we have an instinctive “fight or flight” reaction from the subconscious part of the mind. No amount of adult logic will override this instinctive subconscious anxiety. Self-judgmental thoughts like “it’s for my own good,” or “I cannot be such a baby” only seem to make things worse. It is almost like we have two brains: the adult thinking brain and the ancient instinctive brain.

(Confession: I, Bruce W. Smith, DDS, a dentist who should know better, am a dental phobic myself! Seems like I can do it, but I have a lot of trouble taking it!)

Fortunately, we have some really successful ways of reducing or even eliminating dental fears and anxiety.

Nitrous Oxide/Oxygen Analgesia, also known as “laughing gas” is a mild sedative gas we can administer to calm your nerves. It is exceedingly safe, highly effective, anti-anxiety and a very good pain killer. You breathe it through a vinyl hood over the nose all during your dental visit. Nitrous Oxide is not intended to put you to sleep but for many people, the relaxation and euphoric feeling is so effective, many people sleep through their appointment.

Near the end of your appointment, we administer pure oxygen, which purges the Nitrous Oxide from your system. Because Nitrous Oxide does not stay in your system, after a short recovery period you can typically drive yourself home or go back to work.

Conscious Sedation Dentistry is an enhancement to Nitrous Oxide and local numbing for those of us who are seriously anxious to the point of having dental phobias. Dr. Smith is board certified for the administration of both Nitrous Oxide and Conscious Sedation Dentistry.

Conscious Sedation involves the combination of Nitrous Oxide and a sedative medication given by mouth. Together, they give a more powerful relaxation effect. We call it Conscious Sedation because it is not intended to render you unconscious.

You are very relaxed and sleepy, but are still able to do things necessary during a dental procedure like turn your head, open or close, spit, swallow, close your teeth into an impression, etc. Many people experience the sense that a long appointment “flew by” and may have little memory of the treatment. This can be a very good thing for those of us who are super anxious and would rather not remember much.

Once we have had an examination and developed a treatment plan to satisfy your needs, we can determine if Conscious Sedation will help. If it is a good choice for you, we ask you to arrive for your appointment one hour early so we can administer the appropriate sedative pill or liquid. Since you will not be able to drive yourself home afterwards, you will need a spouse, family member or trusted friend to drive you home and take care of you afterwards, until the sedatives wear off.

Please feel free to contact us if you would like more information about Nitrous Oxide and Conscious Sedation.