I have a dental phobia: how effective is sedations?

Helpful: Proper dental care is essential to your overall health. If a fear of going to the dentist has kept you from regular exams and treatment, then it would be good to a dentist about sedation for any needed work. This can be very helpful.

Very effective: There are different degrees of sedation. Use the lightest regimen you can. Oral conscious sedation is safest. The deeper the sedation the greater the risk. It is the depression of respiration that is the greatest concern.

Very effective: Dental sedation for phobic patients is wonderful. In my practice, we use either oral or IV sedation, or a combination of the two. Many times, once the immediate dental treatment is finished, patients will not require conscious sedation, but may get by with only nitrous oxide because of the elimination of the dental pain issue.

CBT: Seek a cognitive-behavioral therapist who specializes in phobias. One method they use is systematic desensitization which slowly and incrementally brings the person closer and closer to the thing they are afraid of in slow, graduated steps that help make the anxiety more tolerable.

Comfort zone: The appropriate anesthesia depends on the complexity of the dental treatment and your own comfort zone. With the profound local anesthesia and IV sedation you will have no recall of the events of the dental treatment or experience any pain. In your case IV sedation is recommended. Best of luck.