Are You A Nervous Dental Patient?

Dental anxiety and phobia can be a real barrier to maintaining healthy teeth and gums

As your visit to the dentist approaches, do you find that your anxiety levels are rising and what might even be a routine visit to our Bedford dental clinic starts to play on your mind more than it really should? If so, you are probably one of the millions who suffer dental phobia. This is a very common problem which ranges from very mild to extreme anxiety and can result in a cancelled appointment and subsequent poorer oral health.

We acknowledge that dental anxiety is a real thing and even dentists are not immune to it. The fact is though that regular oral care is important so that you can have healthy teeth and gums throughout your life. Some research is also showing that poor oral health can affect our general health too, so this should not be ignored.

Why you should keep appointments

Before we look at ways that The Dental Centre Bedford can help you if you are a nervous patient, it is important to understand that you shouldn’t view your oral health care as optional. From an invasive treatment to a routine check up, our friendly team is here to do all that we can to help you have a healthy mouth.

You might be tempted to skip a check up, especially if you are fortunate enough to have strong teeth that have rarely previously needed treatment. This doesn’t mean that this will always be the case though and the purpose of a check up is to monitor your teeth and gums and ensure that healthy teeth stay that way. Missing a check up may well mean that a tiny area of tooth decay that you hadn’t noticed will become larger and you could even end up with a painful toothache which makes you wish you had kept your appointment. Tooth decay isn’t the only thing that we look for though and gum disease and oral cancer checks are also routine. As with all things dental, prevention is far better than cure.

Although most people do attend their check up, even if they find it difficult, it can be a different story if a procedure is planned for the visit. Nothing seems to raise anxiety levels like the thought of a tooth being drilled or even extracted. Especially where the pain level is relatively minor, or at least manageable, it is often tempting for nervous patients to take a ‘head in the sand’ approach and, instead of having the treatment, cancel the appointment in the hope that the problem will go away. The bad news for anyone taking this approach is that it very likely won’t. Instead, you are likely to end up with a bigger and most likely more painful problem that may need an urgent dental appointment due to the pain level you are experiencing.

The best thing to do is to accept that the care you receive is essential to your wellbeing and to find ways of managing your anxiety so that you can receive any treatment that is needed.

Can we help?

Anxiety can feel all consuming and it may seem that we are the only people who feel that way. We can assure you that our Bedford dentists have seen many people who really dislike visiting for treament and that this is a fairly common occurrence. Because of this, we have many years of experience of helping nervous patients.

We make sure that, from the moment you walk into our practice, you will be greeted with a warm and friendly smile. Our calm but efficient reception team will make sure that all your details are taken as quickly as possible so that you can sit down and relax whilst you await your appointment. When you enter the treatment room we will make sure that you are comfortable and will answer any questions about your treatment that you might have. Some patients like to understand as far as possible, what will happen during the procedure and we are happy to discuss this with you. Others prefer not to know and that is fine too.

We know that patients want to spend as little time in the treatment chair as possible, but it is also important that we don’t rush. We try to strike a balance between efficiency and remaining calm and relaxed throughout the procedure, hopefully helping you to feel more relaxed too.

How you can help

Whilst you may not be able to eliminate your dental anxiety altogether, there are some things that you can do to help ease it somewhat. Different things will work for different people, but below, we offer some of the advice that we give our patients to help them visit us in a more relaxed frame of mind. Remember that your treatment won’t last very long and even if you don’t look forward to it, it will be over soon.

Try some breathing exercises beforehand and allow sufficient time to arrive comfortably so that you aren’t ‘flustered’ on arrival. Equally, don’t arrive so early that you are having to wait a long time before you are seen.

Avoid coffee and other caffeinated drinks before you come to us. These can make you very jittery. Try something relaxing such as chamomile tea.

Please try to remain relaxed as moving around makes treatment trickier and could extend the procedure. Your dentist will inform you how to signal if you need to take a short break during the treatment.

To take your mind off the treatment, close your eyes and try to visualise being in your favourite place such as on holiday.

We hope that this blog helps our more nervous patients receive regular dental care. We would also love to hear of any other tips that you find help you, whether those are things that you do to help yourself or suggestions as to how we might be able to help. If you are a nervous patient based in Bedford, please be sure that we are here to help!

If you would like to make an appointment or perhaps rearrange one that you have cancelled, please call The Dental Centre Bedford on 01234 819868.