About Sedation Dentistry for Nervous Children

For the most part, an appointment with the dentist for a regular teeth cleaning is a painless experience, and many children are able to get through it with no worries. Other children, on the other hand, just cannot help but worry about feeling pain as they let another person work on their teeth while using sharp and motorized devices. In fact, millions of children are nervous to see the dentist for this reason, so many dentists resonate with these feelings that some children might go through when it is time to get their teeth cleaned.

Fortunately, your dentist Waterloo Ontario can offer your child sedation that works alongside teeth cleaning, so that he or she can feel calmer in when sitting in the chair as work is being done. In sedation dentistry, a patient is given a medication that makes them feel calm, happy, or drowsy, as they are able to tolerate the visit better and the dentist can do his or her work. Sedation dentistry is useful in the sense that the procedure can get done faster and it will make it easier for the dentist to work on the child’s mouth.
There are typically four types of sedatives that are used in sedation dentistry, and you can choose the best sedation based on the medicine your child takes and how much sedation is needed to keep the child calm. Here are the four kinds of sedation that is offered by dentists:
Inhaled Sedation

The lightest of the four sedation methods, inhaled sedation is when a child inhales nitrous oxide, better known as laughing gas. This is a fairly easy way to get your child sedated if he or she has a mild anxiety. There is a very low chance that the child will fall asleep from this sedation.
Oral Sedation

Oral sedation is a type of sedation that the child swallows. You will need to obtain this medication in advance before the appointment, as it has to be taken by the child an hour beforehand. There are multiple dosage levels of oral sedation, and they can either give mild or moderate sedation depending on what the child needs. Low doses of oral sedation can keep them awake, but higher doses can make them fall asleep, but still be able to get through the appointment without any problems.

Deep Sedation

Deep sedation is the most powerful of sedations methods. Deep sedation is a form of inhaled sedation combined with general anesthesia which will cause the child to fall asleep. After the procedure and the child wakes up, they will not remember the procedure, whatsoever. Many parents, however, find this type of sedation to be too excessive, so it is reserved for children who have no tolerance to see the dentist or want to think about the work getting done in their mouths.