How can we help you?
We believe in informing and educating our patients and encouraging you to take charge of your own healthcare. We welcome your questions and are happy to answer any concerns you may have about your dental health, your treatment, and our practice.
Please take a look through this selection of questions we often receive. If your question is not answered here or if you have additional questions, feel free to call us or contact us online using our convenient form.
Sedation Dentistry
Approximately half of the population has some anxiety about the dentist. Our team is highly skilled in making even the most timid patients feel comfortable and relaxed for their appointments. We offer kind and compassionate care in a warm and welcoming environment. Our patients love how they feel when they are with us.
Sometimes our individualized care is enough to put patients at ease, but sometimes patients need help to feel comfortable. At Dr. Reagan Grizzle’s office, we offer oral sedation for the comfort of our patients.
Sedation is completely safe for most healthy people. However, because medications are involved, we will do a complete medical history prior to sedation to make sure it is safe for you. If you are pregnant, on certain medications, or suffer from certain conditions, we may need to come up with an alternate plan for your appointment.
Sedation utilizes medication instead of an IV to help patients relax. It is not as drastic as IV sedation, but you will still need someone to drive you to your appointment and drive you home because you will be groggy after your appointment.
Sedation is a safe and reliable method to reduce anxiety and increase comfort. Most patients report being completely relaxed and having little to no memory of their treatment.
When you come to our dental office, we want to help you to feel completely comfortable. We know that many of our patients have a fear of the dentist and they may not even be sure why, but just the idea of visiting a dental office creates anxiety.
Sedation dentistry helps in a couple of ways. First, the medication we use for sedation dentistry makes you feel completely relaxed. Most patients have no memory of their procedure. We still numb you just like usual so you don’t feel a thing and the medication takes the edge off your anxiety.
Secondly, your awareness of the sights, sounds, and smells of the dental office will be dulled. Things that bothered you before like the sound of the suction or the smells of the materials we use will not be an issue when you are sedated. Sensory triggers increase anxiety and sedation helps to dull those senses.
Our goal is to provide you with outstanding care and Dr. Reagan Grizzle is able to perform his job more effectively if you feel good about your appointment. If you ever considered sedation dentistry to ease your anxiety, please ask us about it. We would rather have your dental experience be a positive one.
Dr. Reagan Grizzle is sympathetic to your condition and will never proceed with dental work if you are uncomfortable, but we also know dentistry may be necessary from time to time.
Did you know that anxiety could prevent you from getting numb? Because anxiety causes a rush of adrenaline and stress hormones, the medications we use do not have the same effect as they would on a patient who feels completely relaxed.
Whether your anxiety comes from being at the dentist or because you know you have trouble getting numb, we can help. At our Sugar Land, TX dental office, we offer sedation dentistry to our patients in order to help them get numb and stay numb.
Because sedation relaxes you completely, our numbing medication has the opportunity to work effectively. You will not be worried about your procedure and we can proceed with a comfortable, pain-free, and anxiety-free dental visit.
We can use nitrous oxide or a stronger medication, if nitrous is not enough to make you feel relaxed and at peace about your appointment. Our compassionate team will work with Dr. Grizzle to find a solution that suits your needs so you can have the dentistry necessary to restore your health.
Dental fear and anxiety is common and experts estimate that it keeps about 15% of all Americans from getting the dental care they need. Patients have dental anxiety for a number of different reasons from a negative experience to unexplained fear. Whatever your reason of being afraid, we are here to help.
Everyone deserves to have a healthy and attractive smile, and we will work with you to make sure you can get the care you deserve, too. Our compassionate and gentle team is highly skilled with helping patients who are nervous and afraid. We realize that even calling to schedule an appointment is a big step for many of our patients.
Putting off your dental care could increase the expense and complexity of treatment. By calling now, you may help to take care of some of your problems before they progress. Waiting too long may put you into an emergency situation, which is less than ideal for high fear patients.
Call us today to set up a consultation with Dr. Grizzle to discuss the possibility of sedation dentistry. This process uses medication to reduce your anxiety and diminish sensation. We can talk about what specifically makes you nervous about dental care and find a solution that will work for you.
At our Sugar Land dental office, Dr. Reagan Grizzle decided to offer sedation dentistry when he realized how many of our patients had a fear of the dentist. Nearly half of all Americans admit to having some type of dental phobia or anxiety and probably many more that never admit it at all.
Sedation dentistry utilizes medication to help patients relax during dental procedures. The medication may come in the form of an inhalant like nitrous oxide (also known as laughing gas) or a stronger pill form of a medication to help you relax completely.
Both have their benefits. Nitrous oxide is convenient and wears off quickly once we cease administering it. You do not need to worry about driving after your appointment because by the time you leave, the nitrous oxide will be out of your system.
Oral conscious sedation is highly effective in treating people with a moderate to severe dental phobia. Oral conscious sedation comes in pill form and while it relaxes you completely, you cannot drive after we administer it, so you will need someone to bring you to your dental appointment and take you home.
Oral conscious sedation limits your awareness to your surroundings, but still allows us to speak to you and you can answer questions.