Sedation Dentistry
Sedation is a procedure that makes use of sedative medications, to produce a relaxed experience for the patient, enabling the dentist to perform dental procedures.
There are 5 basic forms of sedation administered in sedation dentistry
- Oral sedation : use of pills or a liquid taken orally
- Inhalation sedation : use of nitrous or nitrous oxide commonly known as "laughing gas" or "happy gas"
- Intravenous (IV) sedation : use of drugs administered directly into the blood-stream
- Local Anesthesia : For minor dental procedures, dentists may use a topically applied anesthetic gel that has a numbing effect on the area, before a local anesthetic injection is administered. Under local anesthesia, you continue to be fully aware of your surroundings. The anesthetic however, dulls the pain, so you don’t feel any of the effects of the treatment.
- General Anesthesia : deep sedation whereby patient is made totally unconscious
Sedative methods for inhalation sedation, oral sedation, intravenous (IV) sedation does not normally entail being "put to sleep" as advertisements for "sleep dentistry" sometimes market. The option of having a full general anesthesia (GA) is the only option whereby a patient is really placed to sleep. =
Each of the above sedation does have its pros and cons, please do thus consult with your dentist on the various types of sedative methology offered and the method that might be best suited for your case.
At BIDC, local anesthesia is used for certain types of treatments at our dental center. Additional oral sedation with local anesthesia can always be requested at our center to be taken prior to the dental treatment for more anxious patients. General anesthesia is done for surgery cases such as dental implants and full mouth teeth extraction cases at the general hospitals in Bangkok by our team of dental specialists.