Other Methods

[Lestor]

I could never get over the fright of the needles and the instruments used in dentistry, so i will admit that i haven't visited the dentist in about 10 years. I try to eat right and to take care of my teeth by brushing and flossing. Recently, I've began to have pain in one of my molars. I visited a dentist and he told me that in order for them to fix my problem that I would have to be sedated. I need a dentist but I would like to know what other methods are available other than sedation dentistry. I think there should be other ways to have procedures other than being sedated.
Is there such a thing as an alternative dentists? Ones that provide more natural ways of dental sedation?
I've seen the cases where people wake up during sedation but they're unable to move their body's or respond to pain. They feel the pain but cannot communicate with the dentist. So they go through horrifying pain without being able to stop it. I'm afraid of this happening to me. Help! I can't be the only one out there with this fear. Please let me know your thoughts and give me your advice on sedation dentistry.

[Dr Vahid Motahar]

Hi,

Thank you for your question.

the possibility of waking up during the treatment and not being able to communicate with the operators and explaining that you feel the pain is what in the past was seen in the cases of general anaesthesia and not the sedation. Even these days this possibility does not exist anymore with general anaesthesia as different types of drugs are used that allow the operators to easily identify such a problem and these things do not happen any more.

Sedation is very different to general anaesthesia. We refer to sedation as conscious sedation and this means patient during the treatment is fully conscious and if they feel pain they will be easily to respond to it and make the operator aware of it. Patients are bale to speak during the sedation and communicate so there is no chance of then feeling pain and not being able to say anything about it.
Alternative options to sedation can be hypnotism that has been shown to be very effective in some patients.