Dental Sedation to Help You Relax

What is Sedation Dentistry?

Many patients find a visit to the dentist to be a nerve-wracking experience. To help these patients feel at ease, or to enable patients to undergo more complex dental treatments, many of our practices offer sedation dentistry (or sleep dentistry) services.

Sedation involves the use of anesthesia to put a patient into a calm, restful state – similar to sleep, but remaining conscious.

Types of Sedation Dentistry

Inhalation (Nitrous Oxide)

• Involves breathing in nitrous oxide(also known as ‘happy gas’ or ‘laughing gas’).
• Decreases pain sensitivity and gives the patient a pleasant level of sedation.
• Patients remain conscious and able to cooperate during the procedure.
• The effects wear off very quickly after treatment.
• There are no after-effects

Oral Sedation

• Sedative that is administered in tablet or liquid form, usually taken one hour before your appointment.
• Lasts between two and six hours.
• Patients usually have little memory of the treatment once completed.
• For safety reasons, patients must have someone to collect them and take them home after their appointment.

Intravenous (I.V.) Sedation

• Involves a small injection of sedative in the patient’s arm.
• Soon after the injection, the patient feels drowsy and relaxed but will remain conscious throughout the treatment.
• The level of sedation is much easier to control than with Inhalation and Oral Sedation.
• Patients usually have little memory of the treatment once completed.
• Suitable for the majority of patients; however, some medical conditions may eliminate this as an option.
• For safety reasons, patients must have someone to collect them and take them home after their appointment.

General Anesthetic

Some dentists may offer general anesthetic to patients who would prefer to be completely unconscious during treatment. This can either be carried out by having an anesthetist visit their practice to administer the anesthetic or booking out a theatre at the local hospital or specialist facilities. This is normally reserved for extreme cases as sedation and pain-free dentistry are so effective; however, highly anxious patients may prefer it for more routine cases.