There’s so much dentistry can do these days to make your mouth healthier and your smile more beautiful. Yet many people don’t take advantage of this because of a long-standing fear of dental treatment. If you are one of these people, rest assured that it’s possible to have an experience that’s free of anxiety and pain. This can be accomplished by blocking your sensations of pain with local anesthetics or by giving you medication that can help you relax. Sometimes both are needed to ensure maximum comfort, especially if you are someone for whom the injections that deliver local anesthetics are themselves a major source of anxiety.

When you are afraid of dental treatment, your guard goes up and your pain threshold goes down; anticipating that something will hurt makes you hypersensitive to every sensation; even sound. If this describes your experience in the dental chair, then you might benefit from sedatives that can be given during your visit to make that anxiety melt away.

Before any particular sedative is recommended, you will be asked to provide your complete health history, including any medications you are currently taking; both prescription and over-the-counter. It is also important to know if you smoke or drink. On the day of your treatment, you may need to have someone drive you to and from your appointment as certain medications take time to wear off.