You’ve seen the statement many times on these blog pages and on our website…”nobody likes to go to the dentist.” There are several reasons for that aversion, but the primary reason is a four letter word—‘Pain.’
You may hear other reasons like, “I don’t want someone poking metal objects around in my mouth”, “I don’t like the smells” or “I hate the sound of that drill”. But if you probe a bit further you’ll find out that it’s the pain people don’t like, pure and simple.
In our school science classes, we learned that ‘pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage that acts as a signal, alerting us to potential tissue damage, and leads to a wide range of actions to prevent or limit further damage.’ Well that’s quite a mouthful, and perhaps too much information, but you can be assured that, at Hitomi Dental Office we pretty much prevent those unpleasant sensory and emotional experiences from occurring. How, you may ask?
Explain the Plan
No matter what we face in our everyday activities we want to know what we are looking at, whether that’s at work or where we want to try and hit our golf ball. And what’s going to happen at the dentist’s office is certainly a situation where we don’t want to have any mysteries.
That’s why all of the dentists and hygienists at Hitomi Dental Office completely explain the details of your treatment to make sure you are comfortable with the plan. Surprises may be great at birthday parties but not in the dental chair.
Tailoring the Sedation Plan
You’ve heard the old saying ‘One size fits all’. That might be true in some types of clothes, but certainly not when treating dental patients. Especially when making sure that any pain is minimized.
Novocain is the anesthetic that we use most often at Hitomi Dental Office and we are very good at administering it. Everyone is different, and over the years we have been able to calculate dosage and determine the optimum injection site to best prevent any pain that might occur with most procedures.
Nitrous Oxide. Commonly called “Laughing Gas”, Nitrous Oxide slows down your nervous system and induces a sense of calm and euphoria. It reduces anxiety and helps you stay comfortable during dental procedures. In certain cases we use Novocain and Nitrous Oxide together to further enhance a patient’s comfort.
Subcutaneous injection. This literally means an injection under the skin. What do we inject? A very safe sedative that will induce sleep or something very close to it.
We hope this answers any questions you may have about pain and what we do at Hitomi Dental Office to mitigate it. If not, let us know.