Oyster Point Dental’s Conscious Sedation Process

Conscious sedation helps reduce anxiety, discomfort, and pain during certain procedures. This is accomplished with medications (Valium or equivalent) and local anesthesia to induce relaxation.

Conscious sedation is commonly used in dentistry for people who feel anxious or panicked during complex procedures like fillings, root canals, or routine cleanings. It’s also often used for surgical procedures to relax patients and minimize discomfort.

Oyster Point Dental respects this natural fear that some patients have for dentists and dental care procedures.For this reason we offer conscious sedation services to put aside this very natural anxiety that many people associate with the dental care process. The conscious sedation procedure itself is safe and painless.

Through the use of sedative medication (usually via nitrous oxide (or “laughing gas”) combined with a sedative in pill form), the dental procedure will not begin until a significant and measured sedative (relaxing) effect is felt. A  high percentage of our patients say they don’t even recall the application (injection) of local anesthetics or the dental procedure itself. It is as if they slept right through it.

But the fact is the patient never actually loses consciousness or the ability to communicate. This is the beauty of conscious sedation services. Our patients enjoy an essentially pain free procedure without the elevated risk of full general anesthesia.

Benefits of Conscious Sedation:

Avoiding preventative and corrective dental care is a proven health risk. Conscious sedation “speeds up the process” from a patient’s point of view. Extended treatments (one hour or longer) seem to take only minutes. Dental research has proven that conscious sedation is the key to motivating a regular dental health care regiment for the anxiety-prone patients.