Dental Anxiety and its effects on people’s daily life

Dental anxiety is one of the largest anxiety related problem that most of the dentists face on day to day basis. I have heard the quote” I hate dentists” from so many of my patients in the chair only to follow it up by “ It is not you but the overall environment and a general statement, please do not take it personally”. And, as a dental practitioner I do not take it personally even once. But at the same time I feel that we as dentists should be doing more to alleviate the anxiety.

About 80% of the anxious patients that we see have had a past experience which according to them was negative, but also strong enough to create an impression in their mind about all the dentists. Most of them also have high caries risk due to avoidance of proper care and assessment. They also have low self confidence and threshold to procedure considered routine by dentists.

These patients have all the right to have a great smile and a high self-confidence. And we as dentists have the power to bring about this change.

How can One Dental help you with dental anxiety.

  1. Our staff is always trained to be kind and empathetic to all the patients.
  2. We never judge any patient on the basis of their past dental experience.
  3. We have a non biased and non judgemental approach towards anxious patients.
  4. We give the patients all the treatment options specifically tailored for their requirements and then let the patients choose their own option.
  5. We are very patient with all the anxious patients, we never ask any of our patients to rush or never impede their space if they need any time out during the procedure.
  6. For patients with moderate anxiety we offer Sedation dentistry which is a form of mild sedation.
  7. For very anxious patients we offer Sleep dentistry which is a form of high sedation usually general anesthesia.

For most of the patients it only takes one positive experience to bring them back on track on their prevention and treatment or oral disease regime. Because we need to remember that just like one positive thought can surpass and counter hundreds of negative thought, one positive experience has the power to counter many negative experiences of the past.

Written by,

Dr. Shreyank Patel (DDS).

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