Visiting the dentist can be a nerve racking experience for some and if you consider yourself an anxious patient, don’t worry, dentist nerves are more common than you may think. At Andrew House Dental Practice our team is trained in giving extremely supportive care to everyone who needs it.
We do our utmost to put you at ease and make the process as smooth and stress-free as possible. This starts as soon as you enter the building and continues for the whole time that you are with us. The feedback that we have received from our anxious patients has been extremely positive and we are confident that we can help you in the same way.
We have a multitude of ways in which we help our anxious patients. We are aware that different things work for different individuals so we ensure that this process is tailored to our clients. Here are some of the methods that we use:
One way we help is by making longer appointments available to our anxious patients. We use this extra time to talk you through the process so you understand exactly what is going to happen. We will then listen to any concerns and explain how we can deal with these. We have found that allowing this extra time really helps in reducing anxiety amongst our nervous patients.
One of the reasons why some anxious patients find the dentist so stressful is due to the lack of control. In order to counteract this, we actively encourage you to take back control wherever possible. This could be bringing a family member to accompany you or listening to some calming music during the process. Anything that helps you is highly recommended.
By working with Blossom Hypnotherapy, a local hypnotherapy company, we have identified some behaviour management techniques that help to relax our anxious patients. The two techniques that we have found work best are cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and hypnotherapy. They work by calming the patient prior to their appointment so that they come into it with a relaxed state of mind.
If you feel that nothing that we have mentioned so far is sufficient to reduce your nerves, we do offer a sedation treatment. The sedation treatment works by giving you a small sedative before a procedure. You will be awake throughout the whole process but will feel extremely relaxed as you feel your nerves dissipate. The sedative subsides shortly after the treatment finishes allowing you to leave soon after.
We hope that the above information has put your mind at ease and that you now feel more confident about visiting us for a dentist appointment. We understand that nerves are never straight forward so we are here to support you every step of the way.
For more information on how we can help nervous patients, please do not hesitate to contact us.