dental phobia

Scared Of The Dentist? Let Us Help!

By on October 12, 2015

One of the most common things we see at Really Smile is patients who are scared of the dentist. Being nervous about dental care is a common phenomenon for patients around the world and it’s no different right here in Indianapolis!

There are quite a few reasons that patients are scared of the dentist and there are also a lot of ways we can help make your treatment easier! If you’ve been delaying dental care for any reason we want to help you get the care you need to keep your teeth healthy. Being proactive about your dental care might be anxiety-provoking but it’s still better than pain, decay, and costly procedures later on!

Why Are You Frightened?

Many patients experience fear for the same reasons. There might have been a bad experience in your past, a dentist who lectured you unfairly, financial worries, or simply anxiety about pain or someone rooting around in your mouth!

Whatever the reason for your fear we’ve based our entire practice around making you feel comfortable and at ease! Our staff are all trained and experienced in treating patients with dental anxiety and phobia. We only hire staff who show compassion, care, and a constructive attitude toward patient concerns!

How Can We Make You Feel Better?

For many patients fear relief is as simple as a good environment, caring staff, and full understanding of the care they’re going to receive. If you consider yourself in this camp we’re confident you’ll feel better the moment you greet our front office staff and see how committed we are to great patient care!

We treat patients like members of a care team. We never make decisions without your input: think of our team like facilitators! We want to work with you to get you the care you need when you need it and exactly how you want it!

If your concerns are financial we’re glad to work with you! We offer multiple financing solutions and we’re also glad to help you take care of insurance paperwork and claims. It can be intimidated to be faced with all those rules and regulations but we know exactly how they work!

Still Scared?

If you read that and thought “that’s great, but I’m still terrified of the dental work itself,” then we’re glad to go the extra mile with dental sedation options. You’d never undergo a complicated medical procedure without sedation so why should dentistry be any different? We offer several different sedation solutions to make your procedures go smoothly!

Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, is the most common form of dental sedation. It’s delivered through a nosepiece that you wear during your procedure and provides a deep, relaxing level of relief. You’ll still be awake while under the effects of nitrous oxide but you’ll feel sleepy, carefree, and completely at ease! One of the best parts about nitrous oxide is that it wears off almost immediately – you’ll be able to drive home without any trouble and with the knowledge that your visit was stress-free!
Oral sedation is delivered in the form of a pill and provides a much deeper level of relaxation than nitrous oxide. We’ll prescribe you a pill during your initial consultation that you’ll take shorty before coming in to our office. By the time you sit down in the chair you’ll be feeling drowsy and relaxed! Oral sedation lasts longer than nitrous oxide and puts you into a much deeper level of sedation. You’ll still be awake but you’ll be pretty out of it! Oral sedation is also an amnesic, meaning that you probably won’t remember your procedure at all!

We also offer non-chemical sedation in the form of NuCalm. This revolutionary treatment uses a series of stimuli to distract you and put you into a state that feels exactly like the sensation you have as you drift off to sleep in the evening. It consists of:

an oral supplement that contains a blend of naturally relaxing herbs and compounds.
low-level electrical stimulation that simulates your brain activity right before falling asleep.
light-blocking glasses that help trick your brain into thinking it’s time for bed.
noise-cancelling headphones that produce constant, relaxing sounds that help you forget all about the things going on around you.

We Want To Make Your Care Great!

Don’t keep away from the dentist just because you’re nervous. We genuinely want to make your experience great and we are willing to do whatever it takes to make you feel completely at ease! It doesn’t matter why you’ve been putting off dental care – we’ll work hard to make you feel good about the future of your oral health!

Do your smile a favor and schedule an appointment at our Carmel dentist office today. We’re also happy to talk about all our anxiety relief options! Call us at 317-451-4050 or request an appointment by filling out our online form.

Don’t Fear the Dentist

By on September 17, 2015

We understand how frightening dentistry can be – we do it every day! At Really Smile Dentistry we’ve seen countless patients who were uncomfortable with their care. With countless people scared of the dentist it’s part of our jobs to make sure that your care is comfortable, pain-free, and understanding of your fears and anxieties!

Modern dental technology, combined with a good old fashioned personal touch, has been able to resolve a lot of the common fears that dental patients face. That’s not always enough though, which is why we’ve designed our entire Carmel dentist office around great patient care!

What’s Your Dental Fear?

For many patients a fear of the dentist can be traced back to bad past experiences. Whether it was a rude dentist, a painful experience, or just bad results that experience can be scarring! At our Carmel dentist office we have a staff of highly skilled and compassionate individuals who exist to make your visit great! We always take the time to make sure you’re happy with your care. We want you to feel relaxed and at home when you’re with us!

For other patients the dentist is a source of financial worry – how can you possibly afford the care you need?! We understand this fear as well – dental care can be very expensive! That’s why we have several payment options and a team who is incredibly knowledgeable about dental insurance! We’ll help you make sure you’re getting the most out of your benefits and we’ll even handle the paperwork for you!

It’s also common for patients to neglect regular dental visits for a variety of reasons. The longer you wait the more you might be worrying about getting a lecture but don’t worry about that with us! If you’re returning to dental care after a long absence we’re glad to have you back! We’ll never lecture you, talk down to you, or make you feel bad – we just want you to have healthy teeth!

Far more common is just a simple fear of the pain that dentistry can cause! Your mouth is sensitive and there’s no way you’re going to let someone hurt it, right? That fear can end up being responsible for serious damage to your teeth if you leave them untreated, which is why we’re glad to be able to offer sedation dentistry for our frightened patients!

What Is Sedation Dentistry?

Dental sedation is the ideal solution for patients who are simply too scared to face dental care. We can have you feeling relaxed, comfortable and fear-free with our three methods of dental sedation!

Nitrous oxide is the most basic level of sedation we offer. Also called laughing gas, we deliver nitrous oxide through a nosepiece that you’ll wear during your procedure. It takes effect quickly and wears off just as quick so you’ll be in and out with ease! Nitrous oxide will make you feel calm and relaxed while still leaving you awake. You’ll be aware of your dental procedure but you simply won’t care!

We also offer oral conscious sedation. This is delivered as a pill that you take prior to your appointment. By the time you sit down in your dental chair you’ll already be feeling relaxed! Oral sedation is quite a bit stronger than nitrous oxide, so it’s ideal for patients undergoing longer procedures or for those who are very scared.

Our last option for sedation is very different from the other two. In fact it involves no drugs at all! Called NuCalm, this method is more of a complete system than a simple pill or gas. It uses several components to induce a deep, relaxed state that feels similar to meditation or the feeling you have right before you fall asleep.

NuCalm starts with a chewable dietary supplement, like a vitamin, that help reduce adrenaline levels. We then attach a pair of microcurrent stimulation patches behind your ears. These patches deliver a low-level electric current that helps put your brain into a relaxed state. Lastly are noise-cancelling earphones that deliver soothing sounds and music and light-blocking sunglasses.

It sounds hard to believe, but NuCalm has helped a lot of our patients feel better without the use of drugs!

No Matter Your Fear We Can Help!

We’re confident that we can help you feel comfortable with your dental care. Whether you’ve had previous bad experiences, are scared of pain, or simply worry about your finances we can deliver great results!

If you want to schedule an appointment at Really Smile Dental you can call us at 317-451-4050 or fill out our online appointment request form. We look forward to seeing you soon!

Dental Anxiety? Sedation Dentistry Can Help!

By on May 1, 2015

People have lots of anxiety and fear about a lot of things. If heights make you nervous, you might avoid looking out windows in tall buildings to help control that fear. However, if you have dental anxiety, you can’t just avoid going to the dentist. 60% of Americans have some level of dental anxiety that keeps them from the dental care they need. In our practice in Carmel, IN, we offer sedation and relaxation dentistry to help those who have significant anxiety related to going to the dentist.

If you avoid going to the dentist out of fear or anxiety, your oral health will begin to decline. That’s the biggest problem for people with dental anxiety: they avoid the dentist until they have a problem that can’t be ignored. At this point, a problem that might have been easily repaired months ago will now require more work (for the dentist) and greater expense (for the patient).

Nerves, Anxiety or Phobia?

Being a little nervous before an exam, cleaning, or procedure is natural, but just being nervous doesn’t mean you have actual dental anxiety. Nervousness won’t keep you out of the dental chair for regular exams or cleanings, or even more involved procedures.

Dental anxiety is characterized first by avoidance behavior. If you have dental anxiety, you’ll go to great lengths to put off going to the dentist. It’s recommended that you see your dentist at least twice a year for exams and cleanings. Keeping regular dental appointments is the key to preventing more serious problems with your teeth from happening. People suffering from dental anxiety will wait until they actually have a problem, and may even wait until it can’t be ignored.

If you suffer from dental anxiety, the feelings of dread can begin days before your actual appointment: just thinking about it can make you burst into tears, or you might even feel nauseated at just the thought of it. The night before your appointment, you’ll have difficulty staying asleep or getting to sleep at all. The next day, in the waiting room, the feeling grows and grows. By the time you’re in the dental chair, the terror becomes so great that when the dentist even puts a mirror in your mouth, you feel like you’re suffocating.

It can even be worse for the 5% to 8% of Americans who have dental phobia. These unfortunate folks won’t even think about going to the dentist. As a result, they often suffer from severe oral health problems. A person with dental anxiety can eventually pluck up the strength to make an appointment and come in (even though the experience is terrible for them). A person with dental phobia won’t even pick up the phone.

If we’ve described you in this post, we have solutions for you.

Relaxation Dentistry with Nu-Calm

Nu-Calm is a breakthrough in helping people manage their dental anxiety. It uses a combination of sensory stimulation and manipulation and adrenaline-canceling oral supplements to essentially trick your brain into thinking that it’s time to go to sleep, but you won’t conk out. Instead, your brain enters a “holding pattern” in the pre-sleep phase (the sensation of deep relaxation you feel when you’re just about to fall asleep).

Nu-Calm uses four components to do its job:

Oral Supplements: The oral supplements used in Nu Calm aren’t sedatives. They’re nutritional supplements that essentially turn off your “fight or flight response”, which normally causes adrenaline to be released (and making you feel anxious and panicky).

Microcurrent Stimulation: Small amounts of electric current are used to enhance the relaxation response. Your dentist will place small patches behind your ears to administer the current. This causes no pain or discomfort.

Sound: During your procedure, you’ll wear noise-canceling headphones. You’ll hear soothing music, but what you won’t hear is the neuroaccoustic software: specific frequencies of sound that are inaudible to you manipulates your brain waves and keeps them in the pre-sleep phase.

Sensory Deprivation: Last, your dentist will place an eye-mask that will keep light from disrupting your relaxation.

All these things come together to create a profound, drug-free state of relaxation that lasts throughout your entire procedure. Many patients report that the feeling of relaxation lasts hours, even days after the procedure!

Sedation Dentistry

We offer two kinds of sedation dentistry: oral sedation and inhalation dentistry. Your dentist will talk to you to determine which form of sedation is best for you.

Oral Sedation

Oral sedation is simple but very effective. Your dentist will provide you with a sedative drug that you’ll take about an hour before your appointment. This will induce a very strong sense of relaxation that will keep you calm during your procedure. You won’t ever lose consciousness but your awareness of what is actually going on will be limited.

Inhalation Sedation

Inhalation sedation is the form of sedation most people are familiar with. Commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous oxide is the “classic” sedation method you’ll find in most dental practices. It’s effects are similar to oral sedation. You’ll wear a small mask that fits over your nose, and the gas is administered through it after being mixed with oxygen.

Don’t Let Your Fear Ruin Your Teeth!

If dental anxiety or dental phobia have kept you out of the dentist’s chair and prevented you from getting the care you need, Really Smile Dentistry can help with relaxation and sedation dentistry!

Call us now at 317-451-4050, or you can use our online appointment form https://www.reallysmile.com/contact-us/make-an-appointment/.

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