In general we utilize two oral medications in the benzodiazepine class, which are among the safest and most widely prescribed medications used today in the United States.
The first medication is one that you will take the night BEFORE your dental appointment. It is called Diazepam and its purpose is to give you a good night’s sleep and reduce the amount of medication you’ll take at the dental office.
You are not allowed to eat or drink anything the morning of your dental appointment, and will need a responsible person to drive you to Dr. Huefner’s office. When you arrive you’ll be relaxed and will be escorted to your treatment room. There Dr. Huefner will evaluate you and determine how much medication to give you. The second medication, the one use on the morning of your dental appointment is most commonly Triazolam. It is a small blue pill taken about 1 hour before your dentistry begins. This tablet has been prescribed over 10 million times per year, by physicians, for patient’s use at home. The drug has almost no side effects or interaction with other medicines you may currently be taking. There are other medications that Dr. Huefner might be used instead of Triazolam, like Ativan, Hydroxizine or Sonata. However, Triazolam is generally the medication of choice because of its excellent sedative and hypnotic qualities.
Dr. Huefner will monitor your pulse, blood pressure and oxygen saturation, and give you the second medication in the dental office. You’ll relax in a dimly lit room under a warm, cozy blanket. After an hour you’ll feel very tired, relaxed and comfortable, however you will not be put to sleep. When you are completely comfortable Dr. Huefner and his skilled team will do your dentistry. When your treatment is done and your sedation has worn off, your companion will drive you home. You’ll feel as if you slept through the morning and won’t have much memory at all of the dentistry that you had.
What are the Benefits or Oral Sedation Dentistry?
It is amazing because oral sedation dentistry allows you to comfortably undergo everything from a simple cleaning to extensive treatment. One of the most important benefits of the medicine that Dr. Huefner uses is that they have an amnesia quality which for most patients, tends to prevent almost any memory of the visit. Oral sedation dentistry is sometimes referred to as “sleep dentistry” because of this and its other pleasant affects, however you are not actually put to sleep.
Other benefits of oral sedation dentistry are:
- It enhances effectiveness of anesthetic.
- It decreases gagging.
- It decreases joint and muscle soreness.
- Allows more treatment to be provided in a shorter time, which could decrease total number of visits.
How Long Does Oral Sedation Last?
For most patients, the effects of dental sedation last between 2-4 hours, so we require you to have someone drive you home.
Am I Really Asleep?
Many call it sleep dentistry because most patients do tend to fall asleep just a little. However that is not our goal. We will keep you at a level of sedation where you can still respond to verbal commands. This has been such a comfortable way of doing dentistry that not surprisingly even the most apprehensive patients have been elated with the results.
Safety
We constantly monitor each sedation patient with a computerized computerized state-of-the-art oral sedation monitors. We measure your heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation the entire time. To be completely safe we also have a reversal agent on hand that reverses the effect of the sedation medicine in less than 30 seconds. We are very excited about being able deliver this extremely comfortable type of dentistry to Orange County. This safe, comfortable and relaxing oral sedation method is a blessing for our patients.
Dr. Norman Huefner, General and Cosmetic Dentistry, Orange County, Laguna Niguel, CA
