How a Sleep Dentist Can Relieve Your Anxiety

Going to visit a sleep dentist is nowhere near as stressful as seeing a traditional dentist. With a sleep dentist, there is the potential for you to get relaxing medication that will help you relax during the procedure. As a sleep dentist, we want you to be completely comfortable in the environment while we can perform the procedures necessary to keep your teeth and mouth in optimum health. We also have the ability to give you the type and level of medication you need to completely relax depending on the type of procedure you will be getting.

However, you will benefit even more from attempting to set some of your dental anxiety aside before the beginning of the procedure. We find that many people psych themselves out even before they visit the dentist, regardless of whether it is a sleep dentist or not. Even worse, sometimes it can prevent people from keeping the appointment they have already made.

People have different ways of preparing themselves to go in and see the dentist. We give you an excellent advantage, in that you have the opportunity to take the necessary medication to relax and relieve your dental anxiety. In addition to this, we always recommend that you make it a habit to visit the dentist at least once every six months. With the regularly-scheduled visits, we are able to not only treat any problems that may be arising but also gives you a psychological advantage. The more often you receive dental care, the more comfortable  you will be with it over time.

One of the most important things you can do from a dental anxiety and psychological point of view is to have a positive view of the experience after you are done getting your sleep dentist treatment. In other words, celebrate the fact that you successfully completed your dental appointment and enjoy the benefits from it. This will help you to feel better about receiving dental care and ensure that  you feel better about visiting the dentist next time.

How a Sleep Dentist Can Help You

When you visit our office, we can provide you with medication that will put you to sleep during the procedure. This is ideal for anyone that needs to have major dental work done. Instead of sitting in the dental chair for hours, wide awake, you can go to sleep and wake up with everything complete. Many of our patients find this helpful when:

• Treating gum disease
• Replacing teeth with dental implants
• Having restorative work completed

To learn more about how we can help you, call and schedule an appointment.

Oral Surgery  >  Gum Recession

Visit a Sleep Dentist Before Your Wedding

As a sleep dentist, we work with a lot of brides that want to improve their smile in time for their wedding day. Issues like crooked teeth can be corrected with orthodontics but it can take months and even years for an orthodontic treatment to be completed. Many brides simply cannot wait that long due to a pending wedding date. In this case, cosmetic dentistry can be a useful tool for improving your smile.

Visit a Sleep Dentist for a Gummy Smile

One of the other reasons that brides visit us is to have their gums shaped so that they no longer have a gummy smile where the gums go up too high on the teeth. We can correct this problem by using lasers to remove some of the excess tissue and shaping your gums so that more of your beautiful teeth show through.

You Can Visit a Sleep Dentist to Replace Your Teeth

If you have lost some of your teeth due to an infection or dental damage, we can replace them in time for your wedding.  Instead of wearing dentures that can fall out or make you feel self-conscious, we can provide you with a permanent and secure way to replace your teeth – dental implants. For your wedding, you want to be able to smile and feel proud of how you look. You can, with dental implants securely in place. This is the only solution that replaces both your missing roots and your missing teeth. We complete the procedure by surgically implanting a small titanium post under your gums and securing it to your jawbone. The body responds to titanium like it would to natural matter and it begins to deposit bone tissue around the actual post. This process is called osseointegration and it works incredibly well. While the process can take a couple of months, once done your implant will be as secure as a natural root and we can secure your new tooth or teeth to it.

Why You Should See a Sleep Dentist

When performing procedures that are going to cause you irritation, we can simply put you to sleep. This way you will not feel anything and you will not have the anxiety that can come from undergoing a dental procedure. While preparing for your wedding you are going to have a lot on your plate. Things, like hiring the right catering company and finding the perfect dress, can be fun but they can also be stressful. Adding the anxiety of receiving dental care to this already full schedule, is not wise.  While the actual dental treatments are necessary for giving you a wedding day smile, the anxiety is not. As a sleep dentist, we can solve the problem by making it easier than ever for you to receive dental care. We simply put you to sleep so that you can feel perfectly relaxed and at ease about having your teeth replaced, gums treated or smile improved. To get started, call and schedule an appointment today.

How a Sleep Dentist Can Benefit You

As a sleep dentist, we are focused on your health but also on your comfort.  It is time to reevaluate dentistry and what your experience will be like.  In the past, patients did not have very many options. You visited the local dentist and received the same basic care, regardless of where you went.  Times have changed and we are offering patients an entirely different way to receive dental care – a way that we believe is far better.

What Visiting a Sleep Dentist is Like

When you visit our dental office for a procedure like dental implants or gum repair, we can put you to sleep.  This is the easiest and most comfortable way to receive dental care because you can come in, sit down, fall asleep and wake up when it is over.  Instead of feeling anxious or uncomfortable during your treatment, you can be entirely relaxed physically, mentally and emotionally.  This is a win-win for anyone that is concerned about feeling stressed when receiving dental care.

Additional Benefits of Visiting a Sleep Dentist

#1 The procedure will be over quickly.

By going to sleep, the procedure will seem to be over in the blink of an eye.  Instead of waiting for it to be over and counting down the minutes, you will feel completely relaxed and unaware of time.  This is a significant benefit for your state of wellbeing.  Simultaneously, the procedure actually can be over faster when you are asleep.  This is because we can focus on getting results without taking breaks or going slowly to make it easier for you.  Since you are sleeping, our intense focus will be beneficial and not concerning at all.

#2 We can do more in one sitting.

If you need to have major dental work done, there is a chance that you will have to come to the dentist more than once.  This is typically due to the fact that most people cannot sit still for so many hours.  However, when you visit a sleep dentist, this is not a concern.  We can often complete far more of the necessary work in one sitting because it will be comfortable for you.  This will save you time in the future.

#3 You will leave happy.

Let's face it – dentistry has a bad reputation.  We know this to be true, even though it is often undeserved.  Our patients feel better after visiting us for dental care because we are a gentle dentist and because we offer sedation.  When you visit our sleep dentist office for a procedure we are confident that you will leave happy and pleased that you received care here, rather than from a traditional dental office.

To learn more about sleep dentistry in general or to discuss your oral health concerns, give us a call.  We will be happy to answer your questions and to create a customized treatment plan to address all of your individual needs.  We are highly skilled and capable of giving you a beautiful and healthy smile. 

Periodontist  >  Pinhole Surgical Rejuvenation

Learn How a Sleep Dentist Can Improve Your Health

A sleep dentist can help you feel less uneasy about going to the dentist. Millions of people feel so nervous about visiting the dentist, they avoid it altogether, which leads to larger bills in the future, poor dental health, and potentially a poor overall health. Fortunately, we can help calm your nerves so you can get through your dental appointment without a problem. A sleep dentist provides conscious sedation methods that allow you to be awake during your appointment without feeling fearful or unsettled.

Sleep Dentistry

A sleep dentist provides popular mild sedatives to help patients cope with dental anxiety. A sleep dentist doesn’t actually put patients completely to sleep but instead puts you into a relaxed, calm, and agreeable state. When under the influence of these mild sedatives, you will feel happy, and you also won’t feel discomfort. In addition to mild sedatives, a sleep dentist will offer local anesthetics to prevent the site of treatment from feeling discomfort. Being sedated during an appointment will help you feel less anxious, since you will be generally happier and most likely not notice the scary noises, like drilling, or the sharp tools that you normally do.

What Sedation Calms

A sedative provided by a licensed and experienced sleep dentist can help:

• Keep you calm and relax your nerves
• Allow you to feel more confident
• Keep you comfortable for long periods in the dental chair
• Help you avoid feeling restless if you have nervous energy
• Control a sensitive gag reflex
• Keep children from feeling scared, and allow them to sit still for a long time

The goal of these sedation methods is to minimize pain, fear, and discomfort during a dentist visit. During your sedation, you will be conscious enough to respond to voice commands, so you will be able to communicate with the dentist about your feelings and if you experience mild discomfort. You will still be in control of the situation; you will just be more confident about it.

Types of Sedation

A sleep dentist can provide you with a variety of options for your sedative means. The most commonly used methods are inhalation, oral, and intravenous (IV).

Inhalation: Inhalation sedation is the mildest form, and it is administered through a mask that is placed over the nose. It is often called laughing gas, but the technical term for it is nitrous oxide.

Oral: Oral sedatives are administered through a pill or syrup. Oral sedatives are used when kids or adults are too nervous to even show up at the dentist without feeling anxious. They are also used when patients are uncomfortable with the appearance of the mask used in inhalation sedation. These medications are prescribed to be taken the night before or right before your treatment or appointment.

IV: Intravenous sedation is used the least commonly for mild cases of dental phobia. This type of sedation is administered through your veins into your bloodstream.

If you are fearful about a dentist appointment, you no longer have to be. A sleep dentist can give you more confidence and contentment during your next dentist visit.

A Sleep Dentist Can Help You After an Accident

As a sleep dentist, we help a lot of people that have been injured in an accident.  Many people do not think about whether or not they will ever be in a car wreck or other type of accident, if their teeth will ever be damaged or what they would do if it happened to them.  This is understandable, but it often leads people to seek care in the wrong place – the emergency room of a local hospital.  If your tooth was knocked out, visiting the ER will allow you to receive medication, but it will not do anything for your missing tooth or the health of your mouth and jawbone.

Visiting our office will.

If you think that you will never have the challenge of dealing with a lost tooth, here are some facts to consider.  Every year, one in three people over the age of 65 are injured in a slip and fall accident.  These types of accidents are not just reserved for seniors.  They impact men and women of all ages and represent 9 million trips to the ER every year.  For those who play sports, in children alone, there are over 5 million sports injuries annually and that does not even consider how many adults become injured while playing a game of basketball at the gym.  Even driving a car is not safe since around 5.4 million car wrecks happen annually.  With these statistics in mind, it is more of a question of when will you get into an accident and not if you will.  Simultaneously, you never know if your teeth will become damaged in the process.  If they are, be sure to give us a call.  We specialize in oral surgery and can replace any teeth that have been knocked out or correct a jaw that has been damaged.
The benefits of visiting a sleep dentist –

Getting into an accident is traumatic enough. When you have subsequent injuries, it can be difficult to then think about visiting the dentist.  We understand that the thought of receiving dental care is stressful for some people, even if it does not actually cause discomfort.  While recovering from another trauma people tend to avoid anything that could cause them anxiety.  Fortunately, this is unnecessary when you visit our dental office.  As a sleep dentist, we can provide you with the dental care that you need without the anxiety that it brings. We can place you under a light sleep so that the dental work is performed without you being consciously aware of it.  This way your experience will be relaxing and when you wake up, your dental restorations or surgery will have been completed.
As a sleep dentist, one of the most common procedures that we perform is the placing of dental implants.  If your tooth was knocked out in an accident or you lost it due to an infection or gum disease, we can typically replace it with an implant.  This is a permanent solution that works by placing a metal post under the gums and securing it to the jawbone.  The bone and metal will fuse together through the process of osseointegration to form a new root system that your new tooth can be attached to.  All of this can be completed while you are fast asleep.

Learn When You Should See a Sleep Dentist

A sleep dentist is the dentist you should see if you are one of the many people that is terrified of spending time in a dentist’s chair. For many people, the idea of getting dental work done bring about extreme anxiety, bordering on terror. Sedation dentistry, also known as sleep dentistry, has risen to the challenge of giving these people the best dental treatment they can get while reducing, or eliminating altogether, the fear of being treated by a dentist. Before you consider getting dental work done, you should know that most dentists have been trained, and are extremely adept at using psychological measures to help put your mind at ease so that you can get through the most dental procedures without the need for sedation. 

If sleep dentistry is an option you choose, you should make sure that you do so for the right reasons. Like with most things, there are good reasons for getting sedation dentistry and there are reasons to not get sedation. What we ask is that you take stock of your levels of anxiety and decide if you can tolerate the treatment with an empathetic dentist and calming measures or if you feel like it is intolerable and will need sedation administered by a certified sleep dentist. 

Here are some of the reasons you should work with a sleep dentist to receive sedation – 

You are going to be undergoing an extremely invasive procedure that could take time and is extremely complex. If you may be unable to hold still and remain calm for the duration of the procedure, going to sleep may be the best option for you.  In cases like this, it may be better for the patient to be asleep during the procedure. 

You know that despite the best efforts of the dentist and despite having an extremely empathetic dental team, you will need a little bit more. In a case like this, you may be able to have a lower level of sedation like nitrous, also known as laughing gas. If you need more than laughing gas, discuss this with us as a sleep dentist. 

If you believe that the only way, you can get through the procedure, is by being completely out of it, then you will want to discuss this with your dentist. For some people being out of it and completely unaware of what is going on during the procedure is the only way to get through it, in which case having a general anesthesia may be the best option for you. 

Finally, if you have extreme fear associated with a particular part of the procedure, you may want to consider working with a sleep dentist. For example, if you have an extreme fear of needles or a dental drill, sedation is probably the best option for you and the if necessary, you can even go to sleep during the procedure. 

In our office, we want to ensure that every patient is completely comfortable during their dental treatments.  Let us know about any anxieties or fears you have so that we can create a sedation plan to help you.