We offer anxious patients or the young patients who may be unco-operative during dental treatment sedation -  There are 3 types of sedation we offer:

The 3 forms of sedation are:

1. Oral sedation (anti-anxiety pills or a liquid)
2. Intravenous (IV) sedation (drugs administered into the blood-stream through a vein – that’s what “intravenous” stands for)
3. General anaesthesia – in hospital

Oral Sedation:

You will be prescribed a pill or liquid to take one hour prior to your scheduled dental visit.  It is imperative that you have someone drive you to, and from your dental appointment.  When you arrive at the dental office, you will be awake and feeling very drowsy and relaxed. This will wear off after 4 – 5 hours.

Intravenous IV:

In reality, you remain conscious during conscious IV sedation. You will also be able to understand and respond to requests from the dentist.

You will not remember much about the treatment because of two things:

IV sedation induces a state of deep relaxation and a feeling of not being bothered by what’s going on. The drugs used for IV sedation produce either partial or full memory loss for the period of time when the drug first kicks in until it wears off. As a result, time will appear to pass very quickly and you will not recall much of what happened. Many people remember nothing at all. So it may, indeed, appear as if you were “asleep” during the procedure.

General Anaesthesia – in hospital:

General anaesthesia is a state of complete unconsciousness (Patients are completely asleep) and have loss of protective reflexes resulting from the administration of one or more general anaesthetic agents. A variety of medications may be administered, with the overall aim of ensuring hypnosis, amnesia, analgesia, relaxation of skeletal muscles, and loss of control of reflexes of the autonomic nervous system. The optimal combination of these agents for any given patient and procedure is typically selected by an anaesthesiologist or another provider such as an anesthesiologist assistant or nurse anaesthetist, in consultation with the patient and the medical or dental practitioner who is performing the operative procedure.