Almost everyone can appreciate the value of dental care as an essential component of their health and total wellbeing. Yet for a variety of reasons, including dental anxiety, many people procrastinate going to the dentist. Studies have shown that around 30% of the population avoid dental visits due to the issue of fear and anxiety.
Millions of people suffer from some degree of dental phobia or fear. While we should have empathy for those who struggle with anxiety issues, it would be remiss of anyone to tell nervous patients that it’s okay to skip or avoid dental treatments.
Most dental treatments are preventive, which means that they are designed to treat your teeth and gum health issues at the earliest stage possible, simply because dental problems have a way of snowballing into much bigger problems in the future if not sufficiently dealt with when they are more manageable – and involve less risky procedures.
In essence, when we avoid dental treatments due to the fear factor, we are increasing the potential for more patient-involved procedures at a later date – instead of nipping the problem at the bud, we are just “prolonging the suffering”.
The issue of dental phobia also creates a vicious cycle. The more anxious a patient is, the more time the dentist and his assistant has to devote to making sure the patient remains calm and co-operative in the chair. In most cases, this additional effort put in by the dental team would, in turn, slow down the pace of the procedure. The slower the procedure, the longer the treatment takes. Often, that means having to divide the treatment into multiple procedures over separate dental appointments.
In other words, the patient’s increased anxiety levels directly affect the treatment duration, which also corresponds to higher stress levels of undergoing a longer treatment process – not to mention the stress of dealing with increased expenses due to making additional trips to the dentist.
To make matters worse, many nervous patients have been avoiding dental visits, hence accumulated several dental problems over the years.
The use of General Anaesthesia (GA) in dental treatments brings much-needed comfort and relief to patients with dental phobia – especially when it comes to children or people with special needs.
It has helped numerous dental patients who struggle with dental phobia to undergo complex procedures in a single sitting that may otherwise require multiple visits. This is one of the biggest benefits that GA has over local anaesthesia (LA), which generally does not permit working on multiple sites or teeth at the same appointment.
As a trusted Brisbane dentist, Pure Dentistry has fully embraced Dental Treatment under General Anaesthesia (GA) as a fantastic feature of modern dentistry.
Pure Dentistry provides dental treatment under GA as a good option for patients with the following cases:
- Dental phobia
- Major dental anxiety
- Traumatic experience with dental treatments in the past
At Pure Dentistry, the GA Dentist works closely with anaesthetists at the Sunnybank Private Hospital, with which she is accredited. All the GA dental treatments are administered at the hospital, which is the recommended setting that optimizes the patient’s safety and comfort.
An anaesthetist is a medical doctor that is trained to administer the anaesthetic medication either by injection or through a mask, and who has the professional training and experience to monitor and regulate your anaesthetic process throughout the treatment and in the recovery room.
You no longer have to put off dental work out of fear and anxiety. Pure Dentistry offers Brisbane patients the option to receive dental treatments under General Anaesthesia (GA) for Kids and adults.
For more information, call Pure Dentistry Dentists in Mt Gravett, Brisbane at (07) 3343 4869 for a friendly chat today.
