Healthy Living Blog

I’m a good person. (Thanks to my sedation dentist, now I’m even better!) I’m not perfect, but I think I have about the same number of flaws as most people.

To be frank (and immodest), there are areas in which I’m almost flawless. I can put together furniture. I can fix toilets. I dress well. I read a lot and stay up-to-date on world events. I have a savings account, a retirement fund, and minimal debt.

So most of the time, I feel like I’m doing pretty well. But then… every once in a while… I think about the areas where I do not excel.

My car has some dents in it that I probably should have fixed last year. My patio is in desperate need of new furniture. I don’t do my taxes until the last minute. Sometimes I forget friends’ birthdays.

And then there’s my teeth.

I don’t like to admit it, but I haven’t been to the dentist in a few years. I’m wracked with guilt, but somehow afraid to go. Of course I don’t like the experience of sitting in the dentist’s chair, fingers in my mouth, gums bleeding, trying to open wider than is physically possible, all while avoiding drooling and/or crying.

Plus, I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed that I have postponed it for so long. I fear the judgment of the dental hygienist, the x-ray technician, the dentist himself. They scold me in my head. "How long has it been since you had your teeth cleaned?!?!" The imaginary dentist’s voice drips with disapproval. I picture a frowning hygienist. "I just don’t believe you when you say you floss every night," she tells me critically.

So I further postpone my dental visit. Another week. Another month. What will another year hurt? Maybe I can just never go to the dentist again…

But reality intrudes on such fantasies of poor oral health with no negative consequences. Like everyone else, I eventually have to go to the dentist.

I brace myself for the judgment and cruelty of the dental practice team members. Instead, they’re all perfectly pleasant. Belatedly, I realize that they see patients like me all the time. They know our dirty little secrets. They know that we don’t always floss every night or get our teeth cleaned twice a year. And, thank Heavens, they are very polite about it.

And then they introduce me to the dental concept I have been waiting for my entire life. It’s called sedation dentistry, and it’s an absolute godsend for anyone who would rather take a nap than go to the dentist.

Sedation dentists give their patients a sedative before treatment. (The drug might be Valium, for example, or something similar.) The patient then snoozes in the dentist’s chair while the dentist does the hard work. Afterwards, the patient wakes up feeling refreshed with nothing more than a little mouth soreness to remind them of the dental work they just had done.

Conscious sedation is not the same as anesthesia, because the patient is never actually unconscious. The patient can actually speak to the dentist during the procedure. This makes it much safer than general anesthesia. And, unlike anesthesia, oral conscious sedation can take place right in the dentist’s office without a dental anesthesiologist.

Another great benefit of sleep dentistry is that you can squeeze a lot more dental work into one appointment. Most patients just can’t handle a terribly long appointment with traditional dentistry. But with dental sedation, procedures that might otherwise take as many as six or eight dental appointments can be completed in a single session.

My problem was that my body needed to go to the dentist’s, but my mind didn’t want to. Now, when I visit my sedation dentist, my mouth gets the dental care it needs while my mind sleeps through the whole experience. That way, everybody wins!

Tags: edation, anxiety-free dentist, conscious sedation, dental phobia, dental sedation, laughing gas, OCS, oral conscious sedation, oral sedation, sedation dentist, sedation dentistry, sedation dentist | edation, anxiety-free dentist, conscious sedation, dental phobia, dental sedation, laughing gas, OCS, oral conscious sedation, oral sedation, sedation dentist, sedation dentistry, sedation dentist

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 12:40 am and is filed under Natural health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.