Is Sleep Dentistry Helpful? Our Shelby Dentist Explains.
Sleep dentistry is also known as sedation dentistry and is very good for patients who have a phobia about going to the dentist or who fear the pain of some dental procedures. It’s also good for children who might have to endure a long dental procedure at our Shelby dentist office.
Sleep dentistry usually doesn’t put the patient all the way to sleep. However, it makes them so relaxed and comfortable that they might drift in and out of sleep during the procedure by their Shelby cosmetic dentists and may have no memory of the procedure afterwards. In rare cases the patient might be made unconscious, but it’s important for a patient even under sleep dentistry to be aware enough to follow the dentist’s instructions.
Our Shelby dentist may begin the sleep or sedation dentistry even before the procedure starts. They may prescribe a sedative for the patient a few hours or even the night before the procedure to relax them. With this in mind the patient should have someone bring them to the dentist’s office the next morning as well as take them back home after the operation. In the case of a child patient this sort of supervision will happen anyway.
There are several types of sedatives used for sleep dentistry. They can be oral sedatives like valium, which are given to patients before the dental procedure. The patient can also be given nitrous oxide or laughing gas to relax them. A very anxious patient might be given an intravenous sedative that will go straight to their bloodstream. This gets them into a relaxed state quickly, but still allows them to be conscious. Finally, if the patient is so phobic that nothing else can work for them they might be put under general anesthesia, which will in fact render them unconscious.