Relieving Dental Anxiety in Mount Laurel, NJ

Many patients that do come to see us are at different levels of anxiety. Some require where just a little hand-holding and such, where, let's sit in the chair, and spend the time. Let's just talk. Will they allow me to look in the mouth and such. Others, they may have had some bad experiences in the past. Certain sounds, obviously the drill, the visual of actually seeing a needle, or the actual pinch or so that some of our patients feel.

Understandably, those are real concerns, and I understand that they are fears. Some of them though have changed over time. At least in our office, we spend the time to identify, see who may require that additional time to spend with them, to talk with them, find out maybe there is a history. Sometimes I'll hear, 'Oh, they had a bad root canal.' Most go well, but, let's talk about it, and see if we can move forward with that.

I will go on to say that my dental team has put together a real nice comfort menu. Includes a few things here. This is left out on the patient's chair. I'll just mention that some of us have neck issues. So if need be, we have a neck pillow. If the room feels a little cool or such, we actually have a warm blanket that we'll place on our patients and such. We find that nitrous oxide for some individuals may be good to start out with, but then, over time, they feel comfortable being with us, being almost family. Nitrous oxide may not be needed over a few visits or so. Then there's an option to that oral medication, sedation, that allows you to sit in the chair, and feel calm. Or in combination, we do that with nitrous oxide also.

Our patients are given a hand squeegee, little stress balls if you will. Our dental assistants are excellent. They spend the time. You're not left alone. This is a single doctor office. You're getting all the care from me. You know who's taking care of you.

So, if you've been putting off a dentistry for some time, please give us an opportunity, and give us a call.

So, if your're afraid of the dentist, there's some ways that we can work with our patients. Some people may not even want to sit in our chair and we will go out to the reception area and sit with you and talk with you so you don't have to feel that dental environment. Sometimes that's just enough, to allow the dentist to walk our patients back to the operatory. We sometimes will find that with our patients that they do require a little sedation if their phobia is moderate, in that we have the ability to give nitrous oxide, which tend to just make people feel more at ease.

We have the ability to also do oral sedation. Of course, again, those little added bonuses of having a monitor over top to watch cable TV is definite good distracter for some of our patients, especially when they can select AMC or HGTV or such. It takes the person maybe out of the dental environment, just enough to allow us to gather information. We have a comfort menu, too. That's to allow patients that they feel cold, we can put a blanket, offer blanket. We have neck pillows. We also have a hot, moist towel after we do certain procedures. My team really does an excellent job on making our patients feel at home, at ease, really like family.