Dr. Nick Wilding – Sunday, June 07, 2015
Many people are very nervous or anxious about seeing or being treated by the dentist.
This fear can cause people to avoid the dentist and dental treatment completely, sometimes resulting in severe pain and infection.
It is vital that you choose a dentist who is caring, understanding and will listen to and acknowledge your fears.
Do some research, and if you can, speak to the dentist yourself. If you feel comfortable enough, you can make an initial consultation and request that no treatments be performed, just a check-up, so you can see how you feel. If you’re not happy, you can try someone else.
COMMON FEARS AND WAYS TO OVERCOME THOSE FEARS:
1. Fear Of Needles
Make sure that you talk to your dentist about you fears at the initial meeting. They will understand what type of fear you have and may be able to use techniques to alleviate these.
It may be reassuring to know that dentists use very effective numbing gels prior to giving you any injections, which means you wont feel a thing.
Other techniques in which your dentist can use include keeping the injection out of sight, distracting you while doing the injection and taking it very slowly to prevent you from feeling it.
2. The Drill
Some people may fear pain from a drill, which can be triggered by the sound.
However, patients are numbed before using the drill. When sufficiently numbed, you will not feel any pain at all – light pressure and vibration is all that will be felt.
If the sound troubles you, pop in some earphones and listen to some calming music – or if you need something more distracting, pump up the music to one of your favourite tracks.
3. Pain
If you’ve had a bad experience with dental pain before, you may be afraid of a repeat experience. However, many factors come into play with dental pain.
Anaesthetics and numbing gels are available for most treatments that may be painful, so its not likely to be the painful experience you’ve had in the past.
You will need to find a dentist you are comfortable with. Learning ways to relax, deep breathing, a great dentist and numbing gels can all help with pain perception.
4. Embarrassment About Bad Teeth
Your dentist deals with problems with teeth everyday so don’t worry there is a good chance they’ve seen someone with worse issues than you have!
They deal and will work with you to get your teeth back to being as healthy as they can be.
One thing you might like to do is call your dentist and let him or her know that you’re embarrassed about the state of your teeth – but you’d like to get some help to fix them. This can help to break the ice so they are understanding of how you are feeling, and you can rest assured, knowing that they are prepared for teeth that may need some work.
Fortunately at Terrigal Beach Dental we offer a number of techniques to help people overcome their fears and have the treatment needed to maintain a healthy mouth.
Light Sedation
Light sedation involves giving you a sedation pill an hour before the procedure which will help you relax and may make you a little drowsy. This is great for people with mild to moderate anxiety as it will have a nice calming effect and make the procedure much more comfortable.
Sleep Dentistry
Sleep dentistry (also known as Sedation dentistry or Twilight Dentistry) is the use of medically administered and supervised IV sedation during a dental procedure. We have a medically trained Sedationist and Emergency Consultant administering safe and effective sedatives making it a relaxing and comfortable experience.
The procedure involves fasting prior to the sedation and then having the specially trained Doctor place an IV drip and monitoring equipment on you. The sedatives are then administered and before you know it the treatment is all finished and you are on your way home.
This is great for someone who is very fearful of having work done or for anyone who has a lot of work to do and would like to be asleep for it.
