About Sedation Dentistry

Our Philosophy:  

At Portland and Central Maine Dental Health Care & Implant Centers your comfort, both mental and physical is our focus.  Many people delay or forgo dental care outright due to fear or anxiety.  As a result, often simple and routine procedures go untreated until they become a serious problem affecting the patient's life.  Often, these anxieties stem from prior bad experiences that are never rectified.  Our goal is to break the cycle of fear by building a solid and trusting relationship with you.  It is our experience that the crippling effects of dental phobias are not suffered during the procedures themselves, but in the days and even weeks leading up to the appointment.  Anticipation is often much worse than reality.

We make use of multiple sedation techniques ranging from inhalation (nitorus-oxide/oxygen), to oral (pill), to multi-drug intravenous (IV) in order to get you "over the threshold" to your care.  Rather than utilize drugs as a crutch in perpetuity, we attempt to gradually step you down to ever lighter sedation until you are comfortable with not having it at all.  This is done by building trust with information and gentle, pain and stress-free experiences.  Over the years, we find that nearly all of our most seriously fearful patients have voluntarily withdrawn from needing sedation for their dental treatment.  To us, simply medicating your fear is not a service.  The true service is the elimination of the fear itself. 

Levels of Conscious Sedation:

In this day and age, even with the latest in dental techniques and technologies allowing dental care to be gentler than ever before, many people still suffer from anxiety and stress when undergoing dental treatment. With the use of a wide variety of sedation techniques, most patients can be relieved of these feelings by being placed in a state of light or moderate conscious sedation. As a result, in many cases, the patient will be able to have their dental work completed without having a memory of it ever occurring.

We offer several different levels of conscious sedation depending on the patient’s needs ranging from light to moderate. During all of these procedures the patient is technically “conscious”, meaning that they are able to breathe on their own, swallow, follow commands, etc. However, they are in varying states of relaxation and often experience amnesia thus eliminating all memory of the dental procedure they underwent. At no time is the patient “put to sleep” by the drug administration, although falling asleep due to relaxation is commonplace. However, the patient can always easily be aroused by stimulation.

Sedation dentistry can benefit people who suffer from: Dental anxiety and/or fear, bad gag reflex, fear of needles, difficulty of getting “numb”, etc. Dr. Peter or Michelle Davis will discuss with you the best option for you to be able to achieve your goals comfortably.