Choose Sedation Options in Winnipeg, MB

At Lakewood Dental Centre, we offer sedation dentistry for patients that might have a little bit of problems coming to the dentist or might be absolutely afraid and scared of the dentist. There are a couple options. We use (inaudible), otherwise known as laughing gas. It just helps patients calm down a little bit during the dental procedures. It's a safe, effective way to allow them to have the dental work done, whether it's a dental cleaning or whether it's a dental procedure with the dentist. And long term and short term, there are very little negative effects to it. It is a safe dental sedation method being used for over 100 years. And patients seem to respond well to that.

The other type of sedation we offer is oral sedation. It starts getting a little bit more in depth than the (inaudible) sedation. But it's an oral pill that we prescribe, and it helps patients to be able to cope with coming into the office. And it helps them with their anxiety toward dentistry and dentists in general. There's one thing that I hear constantly, is patients say, ‘I really don't like you.’ They say, ‘It's nothing personal, but I just don't like you. It's the dentist part of it.’ I get that almost every day. Being able to provide these two options to patients, like I said, are other tools in the toolbox to make sure that patients are able to come to the dentist and be able to take care of problems while they're still small and manageable before any major work needs to be done.

With the oral sedation as well, we're able to adjust the dosage, whether it's a small dosage just to get rid of the anxiety or whether they've got an absolute fear of walking through the front door, and we're having them a little bit more sedated and calm in the chair. And that just allows them to be able to function throughout the day, whether they're thinking about coming to the dentist later that day or they can't sleep the night before. Or it allows us ... and it allows us to get the work done as well. Because if a patient's anxious and they're moving around and they're not happy being here, then we can't provide the service that we're trying to do for them. So oral sedation, whether we're providing for anxious patients or patients that need the heavier sedation, or (inaudble) patients that just need a little bit just to make them a little bit more comfortable in the chair are two great options we provide here at Lakewood Dental Centre.

We generally use two types of sedation methodologies for people who might be experiencing fear or anxiety about their appointments. One type of sedation is an oral sedation, which means they're given a prescription tablet that makes them feel quite a bit relaxed and really eases a lot of their fears about their experience. The other type of sedation that we use is (inaudible), also known as laughing gas, and it's been around for a long time in dentistry and medicine. That seems to work very well as well for people who have fears about dental procedures.

Well, when I'm meeting a new patient for the first time, I like to sit down and spend some time with that person and get to know them and get to know how they feel about dentistry and how their past experiences have been, and are there any things that didn't go well for them in the past. When I have that knowledge, I can really work hard to make sure that we don't repeat that and that they feel that they were heard and that they were listened to and that the experience for them is positive and they can overcome whatever anxiety or fear that they might be feeling.