Tag Archive for: sedation

Dental phobic patients are welcome in our state of the art dental practice.

We offer numerous solutions to conquer fear and get you the smile you always wanted or just simply get you out of the trap.

Dental phobia is a very real and debilitating fear, often triggered by a traumatic experience. Unlike dental fear, which is usually expressed through anxiety, dental phobia can seriously affect quality of life.

Beat the fear

Here at CK Dental in Bristol, we wanted to be able to offer dental phobic patients a way to not only receive painless, stress-free dental treatment, but to actually overcome their fear.

Many dentists don’t understand dental phobia, or confuse it with dental fear, which means they don’t give dental phobic patients the special care and attention they need. Here at CK Dental, Bristol dentist Cornelius Krause has a lot of experience of dental phobic patients and the whole team is practised at putting nervous patients at ease.

One of the ways we do this is to provide a calm environment, to talk to you about your fears, and to explain thoroughly what the treatment involves, letting you know that we understand and empathise with your phobia. Another way is to offer sedation for dental treatments.

Sedation

Here at our Bristol clinic, dental phobic patients are offered conscious sedation to control the pain of any dentistry work. Also known as ‘twilight sedation’, conscious sedation means keeping you in a semi-conscious state, so you are relaxed and pain free throughout the procedure.

The medication is administered by our resident consultant anaesthetist, either orally or via an IV drip, and the anaesthetist will then be present throughout the procedure. Because recovery from conscious sedation is quick, most patients are able to return home soon after the procedure, although we do recommend that a friend or relative accompanies you.

Don’t look back

One real advantage of conscious sedation for dental phobic patients is that they often do not remember the procedure clearly, if at all, so they are less likely to be anxious in future. This, combined with our overall calm and open approach, can mean that dental phobia is a thing of the past.

Dentophobia, or odontophobia, is the fear of dentists and dental procedures, and it is not an uncommon phobia. Here at CK Dental, we want our patients to feel completely at ease when undergoing treatment at our Bristol dental clinic. For most people the use of local anaesthesia, to numb any pain caused by dental treatments, is enough to make them comfortable, but for those who are severely upset by the thought of undergoing dental work we offer conscious sedation.

What is ‘conscious sedation’?

Also known as ‘twilight sedation’, this is a state of deep relaxation in which the patient is responsive to speech and command, but will tolerate procedures which otherwise might have been too uncomfortable, either physically or due to fear.

At CK Dental in Bristol, we use a consultant anaesthetist, Dr Claudia Paoloni, to perform our conscious sedation, ensuring you are in the very best hands to further put you at ease. The medication can be administered either orally – as a pill – or through an IV drip, which Dr Paoloni will personally supervise.

Will this mean an overnight stay?

No. Conscious sedation has a very quick recovery time and most people are able to return home almost immediately after treatment, although we do recommend that you bring a close friend or family member to accompany you.

Some patients are worried that being awake during the procedure will cause them to be even more afraid in future, however one major benefit of conscious sedation is that although you are ‘conscious’ in the medical sense, you are not fully awake and most people do not remember the procedure clearly.

For more information on conscious sedation and the methods used at our Bristol dentistry clinic, please click here.