Conscious sedation in the dental office

If you have been paying attention to the radio lately, you have most likely heard a dental commercial offering conscious sedation.  Some may refer to it as sleep dentistry although this is illegal to say in my state. 

Sedation dentistry is quite simple.  You must have a consult with your TRAINED dentist and review your diet and any medications you are taking.  Wait a minute did I just say diet?  Yep your diet can effect the medications we use.  Once it has been determined that it is safe to sedate you in office an appointment will be made. 

The night before your appointment you may be asked to take one small pill this is typically a valium.  We have you take a valium the night before to kick start the sedation process, also about an hour before you will take another small pill.  Morning appointments are nice because you shouldn't  have anything to eat or drink for about 6 hours prior to your appointment. 

Once you arrive for your appointment, you will be escorted to the room where you will have your treatment done.  The dentist will come in and determine how sedated you are, and most likely give you some more medicine.  Now all you have to do is just lay back and drift off to la la land.  It usually takes about an hour or so to sedate a person enough to begin the work.  The nice thing about sedation for you the patient is that before you know it the appointment is over and your on the way home, or you may just "wake up at home". 

The other beautiful effect of the medicine is that it causes amnesia so you will remember very little if any of your appointment even if your not "sleeping".  There have been many times when my patient has sworn to me that they would remember everything from the appointment, but when they return for a follow up they never remember very much.

If you are terrified of the dentist, sedation dentistry might be for you. 

That is all.