Do you suffer from dental anxiety?

COMMUNICATE, EMPOWER YOURSELF WITH KNOWLEDGE AND TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR FEARS!

Ways of tackling dental fears

The first thing you can do is to realize that your dental fear can be overcome.

1. Psychological

This means the way the dentist acts and communicates.

There is no need to fear visiting the dentist. At the Brisbane Smile Centre, we feel one of the most important factors in dealing with dental anxiety is communication. You need to feel at ease with your dentist if you want to overcome your fears, and your dentist needs to know what your fear is and how they may be able to help you.  At the Brisbane Smile Centre the dentist develops a rapport with you so you do not feel they are threatening and work with you as a partner in your dental care.

Your dentist will let you gradually get used to new, unfamiliar things, take things slowly, explain things to you, let you know what they are doing and what to expect next. As you build confidence in yourself and trust in the team that is caring for you, the length of your appointment and the amount of work accomplished will increase.

A Signalling System can be established allowing you to stop for any reason, whether it be because you need more anaesthetic, want to rinse out, or simply need a short break. The most common signal is raising your left hand. You can also practice relaxation techniques like Diaphragmatic Breathing.

We place a great importance on patient education, our patients have the opportunity to see and understand the procedures before any work is started on their teeth. The more informed you are, the more at ease you are.

2. Sedation

We use sedation dentistry to make you feel relaxed. We do not put patients to sleep, but we can refer you to a dentist who can offer this service.

We believe that when patients have a positive experience this helps build confidence and they do not need to rely on sedation dentistry.

We have successfully “converted” fearful nervous patients into much more relaxed patients and now they have a positive attitude towards their oral health and smile.

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