Dr David Howard - Wholistic Dentistry
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If you are dental phobic, that you don’t need to go under a general anaesthetic to have your treatment performed.
Control of dental anxiety is very important. Mostly people consider the importance relating to the procedures themselves, however we also consider that easing anxiety is important to long term care.
Anxious people frequently miss check ups and scaling appointments. They then suffer the problems of gum disease, which can range from bad breath and bleeding on brushing to loss of teeth. They also only appear for emergencies which are often expensive to remedy. For example, a filling one-year if left can become a dead tooth in 2 years time. The cost difference is thousands of dollars. It is therefore cheaper and healthier to find problems early. Unfortunately anxious people only find these things too late.
We use local anaesthetics. In addition patients can have nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and many people enjoy appointments with this and music. Dentally anxious people often do not believe such statements.
The most effective anti-anxiety agent we have is Hypnovel, which is one of the benzodiazepines groups of drugs (the valium group). With intramuscular administration (typically in the arm) it creates emotional neutrality and some amnesia. This typically allows treatment for most people. With amnesia we can also do very long appointments.
Once 19 fillings were done in one session. The patient wasn't anxious and could only get one day to have his dentistry done. Hypnovel allowed this to be done. Not only did they get all the treatment completed, it felt to them like it was an hour visit (when infact it was a five hour appointment!)
Because of the safety of Hypnovel used intramuscularly it is very economical compared with intravenous sedation, and so is often used even for routine scaling for those in need. It doesn’t cause unconsciousness or alterations in mood so normal conversations can be maintained. Patients mostly doze through the appointments.
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