We can offer adult patients who are anxious about dental treatment the opportunity to have their treatment carried out under intravenous sedation. This involves an injection into the arm or back of the hand of a drug known as midazolam which relaxes the patient into their position where they are relaxed enough to allow dental treatment to be undertaken.
Once the patient is relaxed the areas involved are numbed with local anaesthetic and dental treatment is carried out. Another advantage of midozalam sedation is that most patients do not tend to remember much about the dental treatment that they have just had.
Dental sedation is much safer than putting a patient to sleep which is known as general anaesthesia. Dental treatment under a general anaesthetic cannot been provided within a dental practice setting and can only be provided within a hospital.
Intravenous or IV sedation is a technique used to reduce anxiety during a dental visit. A small cannula (plastic tube) is placed into a vein in your arm or back of the hand and a sedative drug administered. The sedative works quickly and you will feel relaxed within minutes. The dentist controls the level of sedation, aiming to make you feel relaxed whilst still being able to co-operate for treatment. The full sedative effects last for about an hour allowing a lot of dental treatment to be carried out if necessary.
The tooth is numbed and cleaned using special instruments in combination with antibacterial medicines. Once the tooth is cleaned and dried it is sealed and filled to prevent re-infection of the tooth.
We keep you in our waiting room or in the dental chair as the sedative starts to wear off. Generally this takes between 15-30 minutes. We will only allow you to leave when we are happy that all is well. We will be on hand while you recover should you have any problems.
No. Unlike a general anaesthetic, there is usually no feeling of nausea afterwards. This is due to the fact that very different drugs are used. You will, however, likely feel quite sleepy after your sedation and may well wish to take a nap.
