Based on what you’ve heard, sedation dentistry may sound like a great fit for you. That’d be great – you could trust it to make dental care smoother and easier. Still, you likely want to know what dental sedation feels like before you commit to anything. You’d then grasp whether its sedatives could work well with your body. With that said, let your Savannah dentist offer an answer in this primer on how dental sedation feels.
The Basics of Sedation Dentistry
To learn how dental sedation feels, you’ll need to know about sedation dentistry first. You should review this field’s basics before you delve further.
Sedation dentistry is a set of ways to help patients relax for dental work. In particular, it uses medicines to calm people for a smooth and easy treatment process. These medicines are usually sedatives, with patients often taking one or several drugs on the day of their visit.
What Does Dental Sedation Feel Like?
Each sedation dentistry option has its own distinct effects. Given that fact, consider the two most common forms of dental sedation below:
Nitrous Oxide Sedation
For nitrous oxide sedation, the patient breathes nitrous oxide or “laughing gas” through a nose mask. This sedative tends to cause giddiness, euphoria, and (per its nickname) fits of “the giggles.” Some patients even report feeling tingling sensations in their arms and legs. In any event, the “laughing gas” leaves patients calm but conscious; they’ll be self-aware enough to respond to dentist instructions.
Feelings caused by nitrous oxide quickly fade after treatment. Once you stop breathing the gas, you’ll return to normal within a few minutes.
Oral Conscious Sedation
Oral conscious sedation has the patient take a pill before their care. This sedative often “kicks in” as treatment starts, making you feel deeply relaxed. This calm is more intense than what nitrous oxide can cause, but it’ll still leave you conscious and alert; you can respond to dentist instructions as needed.
Unlike nitrous oxide, oral conscious sedation leaves you very groggy afterward. It’s to the point that you’ll need a friend or family member to drive you home from treatment.
Qualifying for Sedation Dentistry
It doesn’t take much to qualify for sedation dentistry; you just need decent health and a good reaction to the medicine. However, the best candidates tend to have one (or more) of the following traits:
- Mild-to-intense dental anxiety or phobia
- Trauma from previous dental experiences
- An overly-active gag reflex
- Struggles with sitting still
Regardless of the sedative, dental sedation should leave you feeling fine. Talk to your dentist to find out what else to expect from it!
