When you need major
work done on your teeth that might be too painful to bear with local
anesthesia alone, it isn’t uncommon for dentists to prescribe a
technique called sedation dentistry to help you feel at ease during
your procedure. In simple terms, sedation dentistry is putting a
patient to sleep so that pain and discomfort cannot be felt.
In actuality, however,
you won’t be sleeping per se throughout a procedure where sedation
is administered. In many cases, patients are only sedated lightly, so
that they can easily be woken during the treatment (to receive
instructions from the dentist) and after it (so they can be on their
way much quicker).
Patients might
sometimes feel apprehensive about the fact that sedation dentistry
doesn’t put them into complete sleep. Some fear that they might
still feel pain with the lighter sedation. However, the overwhelming
majority of patients can attest to the fact that their procedures
were completely pain-free while under sedation.
In fact, many dentists
can tell you that snoring is a relatively common occurrence in
sedation dentistry. This is often touted as proof of just how
comfortable patients are throughout otherwise painful procedures.
If your dentist has
advised that you might need sedation dentistry, talking to them about
your anxiety over the procedure can help. Dentists can fill you in on
the process they will use, as well as on experiences patients have
had with them in the past so you can feel at ease about the entire
occasion.
