1. Caring understanding staff & dentist. You’d be amazed of some the stories my patient’s have told me!
2. Wand electronic anesthesia that uses a microprocessor controlled device to deliver the anesthetic. No more “Civil War” era dental syringe!
3. Better topical anesthetics that “pre-numb” the area. “Painless” can’ be promised-but we dramatically closer!
4. Advances in anesthetic solutions make numbing more comfortable and much more effective. No older “Novocain.”
5. Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) helps many patients “feel they are somewhere else.”
6. Hypnosis is a lengthy procedure, but it can help with some people.
7. Ever have a painful dental cleaning or gum therapy? We now offer needle-free anesthesia to numb the gums for comfortable dental cleaning and periodontal therapy!
8. Oral pill sedation works wonders with many patients. Often “just a little pill” and many people actually snore though the visit and remember almost nothing! We often use this for long difficult restorative or dental implant visits.
9.  I.V. (intravenous) sedation uses an I.V. catheter to deliver the sedative medication so that the sedative can be triturated, or adjusted, to the needs of the individual patient. Most patients experience amnesia of the visit. Sedation can also dramatically raise the pain threshold for those difficult to numb patients.

For the truly phobic and “I can’t get numb” people, by far the most effective is use the oral sedation prior to starting IV sedation. The oral sedation is very easy, no needles, and will usually produce sufficient amnesia so that when the IV is started the patient is amnesiac with no memory of the entire visit! (This is what we call a desired “side effect.”)

Roughly about 2% of general dentists are fully licensed and certified for this procedure.

PS—In case you ever wonder—my most phobic group are physicians and nurses!