Dental anxiety can stop good oral and overall health
Being afraid of the dentist’s office by itself is not the problem. It’s not unusual, and even understandable, that some people are filled with anxiety at the thought of sitting in a dental chair.
It’s significant to know how letting your dental anxiety keeps you from visiting us may affect your oral and overall health. If you keep a good oral hygiene routine at home, that’s a good start! However, that alone is not enough to keep gum disease at bay. It takes a skilled professional who has the training, tools, and experience to keep more serious dental problems at bay.
Overcoming Mild Dental Anxiety
Mild dental anxiety is discomfort and nervousness at the dentist. It can be treated in a number of ways.
Talking to your dentist is the first step to overcoming your dental fears. Make sure your dentist understands your accurate anxieties and works with them to make your time in the dental chair as relaxed as possible.
Controlled breathing relaxes your body and shifts your focus to other things in order to preoccupy your mind. Controlled breathing can help you keep away from a lot of discomfort and anxiety. The easiest breathing method purely involves inhaling and exhaling through your nose for a slow count of three for each inhalation and exhalation. This technique is particularly useful as it also overcomes the breathing issues many of us feel when things are in our mouth.
Relaxation techniques may also work. If you are one of those people who like control, ask the nurse or dentist to chat about the progress of your treatment. Different relaxation and distraction techniques work for different people so try and find something that will work well for you.
Overcoming Severe Dental Anxiety
Severe dental anxiety often cannot be treated by the steps above – though all of these techniques can and should be used to try and put you at ease. Severe dental anxiety is more of a psychological phobia that is less due to nerves and more due to irrational fears. You can potentially overcome severe dental anxiety in a few ways.
You can receive counseling for your phobia. This looks at the root reason of your phobia and tries to work through it so that you can move beyond it.
Dental anxiety is very general and there are a wide number of support networks for people with these phobias.
Sedation can be an option for severe sufferers of dental anxiety. In fact, sedation may prove one of the best solutions to the problem, giving you a better chance of visiting the dentist again!
There are different types of sedation available. The simplest is oral sedation, which is a tablet that you swallow an hour before the start of dental treatment. You will still be awake and aware of what is happening around you, but you will be also drowsy and more comfortable.
( Best Dentist in Bhopal )