10 May Helping nervous dental patients get treatment: it’s all about finding what works for you

Nervous dental patients cite a variety of reasons for fearing treatment. At Dental Beauty Islington in North London, our whole team is committed to working with anxious, nervous, and phobic patients to enable them to get the treatment they need to restore their oral health.

Approximately one in ten UK adults identifies as a nervous dental patient to the extent that they put off seeking treatment until a painful emergency arises that cannot be ignored, forcing them into a dental surgery and in many cases increasing their fear, because they then need more intensive and invasive treatment.

At our North London clinic, we have a variety of options available to nervous dental patients to help them back to full oral health. Principal dentist Dr Ricky Adams is Dental Phobia certified, and the whole team is highly experienced in working with anxious patients.

North London treatment options

Hypnotherapy

Delivered by a fully qualified hypnotherapist, this is an effective way of communicating with your subconscious mind, and can be hugely beneficial to nervous dental patients, furnishing them with self-management techniques so that they can continue to be free from fear after the initial course of treatment is complete. Hypnotherapy can also be effective for patients who suffer from bruxism (teeth grinding) or a strong gag reflex.

Conscious sedation

Unlike the general anaesthetic provided for surgery in hospital, with conscious sedation you will remain awake, thus able to cooperate with any instructions or requests from your clinical team. However, you will be in a highly relaxed and peaceful state, and will remember very little if anything about treatment after it’s over. Of course, you also won’t experience any pain.

We use intravenous sedation at our North London clinic, and you need to bring a friend with you to take you home and look after you until your sedatives fully wear off.