When do we use sedation? We use it for patients who are extremely apprehensive. It literally allows us to treat patients who could never be treated before. And also for all the procedures that take a long time, a lot of cosmetic procedure like the porcelain veneers, at times patient needs to spend over three hours in the dental chair. Invasive surgical procedures like bone grafts, implant surgeries also is good candidates, good way to perform this procedure in patients who are being sedated. It’s something we’ve been doing here for over 25 years, and we have history of thousands of patients being sedated, treated.
We take patient comfort very seriously. All our procedures are completely painless. What we use here is a protocol being called [inaudible] patient. We actually administer medication powderized form under the patient tongue. There’s no IV, there’s no pricks, there’s no injections. It takes about half an hour to 45 minutes to patient to get relaxed and then we can start the procedure.
What I like about this process is that is extremely safe. What I also like about it, that it causes so-called integrated retrograde amnesia, meaning that patients do not have a memory of a procedure. They will remember coming to an office, me saying hello to them, and pretty much that will be all. So that makes a huge difference because a lot of patients are very, very apprehensive, had a bad experience with dentists, and that helps a lot to alleviate and overcome these conditions.
