Dental Phobia

Millions of people cannot face the prospect of receiving dental treatment without feeling complete dread. If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. Sacrificing your oral health because of dental anxiety is dangerous, but also unnecessary. At Manhattan Beach Sedation Dentistry, our professional team combines compassion and understanding of your concerns with advanced sedation dentistry techniques that allow you to take back control of your oral health.

Compassionate Care

Many people develop dental anxiety because of a negative experience they have had in the past. Unfortunately, this often results in more serious and complex problems as your oral health degrades. But the professional team at Manhattan Beach Sedation Dentistry understands how important your good oral health is to your overall well being. We make it a priority to understand where your anxiety originates to help you take steps toward a positive approach to your dental care.

Sedation Options

We also offer sedation options that allow you to feel calm and relaxed before, during and after treatment:

Inhalation Sedation – “Laughing gas” is a very effective sedation method that helps patients with mild to moderate dental anxiety. It makes you feel very relaxed and somewhat drowsy so that the sights and sounds around you fade into the background. We are constantly by your side during treatment so that you can let us know if the level of sedation needs to be increased for your comfort. Many patients recall little or nothing about the details of their visit.

Oral Conscious Sedation – Patients with moderate to severe dental anxiety benefit greatly from oral conscious sedation. The dentist prescribes a calming medication that should be taken about an hour before your appointment. By taking the medication beforehand, you will feel relaxed when you arrive at our office. In these cases, the prescribed medication is usually combined with Inhalation Sedation to provide you with a completely comfortable and stress-free experience.

It is important to note that, if you are sedated, you will need to make arrangements for transportation to and from your appointment.

Many people suffer from dental anxiety and avoid treatment because they just can’t overcome that anxiety. Recently we had a new patient at our Sedation Dentistry Manhattan Beach CA office with this very problem. Brad came to us expressing his fear of dental procedures and dentists in general. I took the time to assure him that he was not alone in experiencing these fears and that it was a very common problem. We then discussed his history in an effort to find out why he was so fearful.

As talked about his experiences in the past he related a story of negative childhood experiences with a dentist he considered to be less than compassionate in his approach to treatment. Brad became more relaxed as we talked, and eventually he lost the “deer in the headlights” look he had when he first came into the practice. Making patients feel at ease with the staff and surroundings is our goal and the first step to controlling and eliminating these fears. Brad was responding positively to having his own feelings taken into account.

We discussed how Sedation Dentistry provides many options for fearful patients. Sedation treatments such as Inhalation therapy (laughing gas) and oral conscious sedation can provide an anxiety-free experience from beginning to end. There are many factors to take into account when selecting the most appropriate sedation method, and everyone reacts differently to different types of sedation.

At the Sedation Dentistry Manhattan Beach CA office we match the needs of the patient with the correct sedation therapy. Brad also understood that delaying dental treatment because of his fears would ultimately lead to neglected oral care and long-term problems that would just become more difficult and costly to correct.

Brad was happy to learn that a controlled and regulated approach to the chosen level of sedation would allow my staff and I to monitor his comfort throughout the duration of his treatment, ensuring that the post-procedure experience would leave him feeling refreshed and renewed. Using a compassionate and understanding approach helped Brad to finally find a way to feel confident and happy about taking positive steps to ensure his oral health.