I'm a dentist. What that means for me on a daily basis is that somebody like yourself tells me that you don't like coming to see me. I get that every single day and I get it. I understand that it can be a stressful thing, it can be a scary thing, it can be an uncomfortable thing to have dentistry done. We understand that. The good news is we can also make it a very, very easy experience for you here. And the reason I say is because we offer I.V. sedation here.
That's something where you may have heard of twilight sleep or conscious sedation. The reason it's called those, conscious sedation or twilight sleep, is because it's not general anesthesia. General anesthesia is very, very deep. It's much more serious and much more risky. There are absolutely good indications for that. You need a surgery in an OR, that's what general anesthesia is for, absolutely.
I.V. sedation, it's very safe because we can reverse everything we give you, so we can wake you up like that if we want to. It's called a conscious sedation which is terrible term for it because you're snoozing right through the procedure, but the conscious part means that your body's safety faculties are still there.
So you can talk to us and say, "Hey, I'm uncomfortable," or, "I'm waking up," or whatever. You can't have that "I'm trapped in my body and I can't tell the surgeon that I'm awake" kind of thing with I.V. sedation. So that's a common question I get, so don't worry about that.
So you don't ever remember those conversations. We can ask you to scoot up in the chair or turn to the right or whatever, and you just are kind of cruising right through it and not having any idea that took place.
So the reason that we like to offer that for not just surgery, because we do it for anything if you want to, really, is because we know how much people don't like being in our chair. And that's okay. And if I'm doing oral surgery, it's a great way to have surgery done because you can forget the whole process, right? But it also allows me to give you things in the I.V. that make your first few days much more comfortable--things that minimize swelling and discomfort for about 48 hours, things that keep you comfortable for longer that first day.
Also, the reason it was brought into dentistry is actually because it makes it even safer for certain people in the population--meaning, folks who have a cardiac history. A lot of times dentistry can be stressful, and people's blood pressure gets elevated when they come to see us. That is not what we want to do. We want you to have a very low-key, enjoyable experience.
So the safety party for sedation is for a cadio-protective approach, if you will, where if you've had a history of a heart attack or a stroke, a very high blood pressure, that sedation allows your blood pressure to maintain at a very safe level, and even if it did elevate, then I can give you something in the I.V. that immediately makes it drop down to its safe level again.
So it's there for your protection, your enjoyment, your comfort. It makes it easy for us to work, and it makes a very long day sometimes seem like it's a very, very short day because it kind of deletes your perception of time. So it's a really pleasant way to have dentistry done no matter what the procedure is.
And we can do it, like I said, as a tag-team approach where if you're getting that cosmetic procedure done, say like veneers, where I'm more like your anesthesiologist for day, keeping you sleeping right through it. Or if it's a natural surgery procedure, we've got you covered there, too.
So come talk to us about it. It is something that's pretty unique. About 4% of dentists in Georgia have a license for sedation. So we're a little hard to find sometimes. But we offer it here, and I'd love to talk more about it with you in person.
2 фев 2016
