SEDATION DENTISTRY / CONSCIOUS SEDATION

Sedation dentistry allows you to be sedated just enough to be pain free and unaware of the treatment, as if you were relaxing. That is why it is normally referred to as conscious sedation dentistry. So if you have sensitive teeth, a fear of dentists, have a bad gag reflex, hate needles, or have limited time to spend on dental care at the dentist, Sedation during dentistry procedures can help you.

Whatever the case may be sedation by your dentists can help you be more anxiety free during your dentistry treatment. Your dentist's ultimate goal is to make your visit to the dentist a relaxing and enjoyable one. Since you are completely comfortable, relaxed, and pain free your sedation dentist can do years of dental treatments in one or two dental visits.
With sedation your dentist can restore sore gums to good dental health, fix a chipped tooth, replace crowns or dentures, whiten yellow or stained teeth, and more. All pain free.

General Anaesthesia (GA) / Unconcious Sedation

Nowadays, general anaesthesia in Adults / Children (being put to sleep) is a treatment available for all.. For most adults / children, general sedation works acceptably well. If sedation fails then GA can be provided. General Anaesthesia is used to perform root canal therapy procedures or even to have a complete cosmetic makover done. Talk to our dentist to find out more.

What are General Anaesthesia and Deep Sedation?
General anesthesia (GA) is when you are totally unconscious. In this state, you can't feel any pain. You can't reliably breathe on your own, so for more complex procedures (such as fillings - these are actually more complex than extractions under GA!) and procedures of longer duration you need to having a "breathing tube" inserted.

Deep sedation is a state of depressed consciousness, where you may lose the ability to breathe independently and you can't respond to verbal commands. However, you can still feel noxious stimuli like pain, so local anesthesia is necessary.

How is General Anaesthetic Adminstered ?

The Smiles Dr arranges to have GA administered by a registered Aust Qualified Anaesthetist, in a theater environment (following the guidelines of the Australian Anaesthetists Society).

The dental surgeon requires special additional training which is provided the faculty of dentistry (Sydney University) to be able to provide this dental treatment under GA.

"In assessing the needs of an individual patient, due regard should be given to all aspects of behavioural management and anxiety control before deciding to treat or refer for treatment under general anaesthesia. General anaesthesia for dental treatment should only be administered in a hospital setting with critical care facilities. All dentists involved in arranging or providing treatment under general anaesthesia should discuss with the patient advice and treatment options to avoid or reduce future episodes of general anaesthesia.

GA is usually started off with an injection in the hand or arm. It can be supplemented by a face mask but if a face mask is used you probably won't remember it.

If post-op pain is expected, the normal practice is to inject a long acting local anaesthetic during the GA, so that when you wake up everything is nice and numb for a good few hours (say 6 hours?) afterwards, which should give you time to take some painkillers and allow them to kick in. It's much better to premptively stop pain than it is to try to deal with it once it has started.

Apart from the risk of death (which, while very small, is still significantly higher than for conscious IV sedation), general anesthesia has a few major disadvantages:

(1) Complications are more likely with GA compared with conscious sedation both during and after the procedure. GA depresses the cardiovascular and respiratory systems. For some groups of medically compromised patients, it is contraindicated for elective procedures.

(2) Laboratory tests, chest x-rays and ECG are often required before having GA, because of the greater risks involved.

(3) Very advanced training and an anesthesia team are required, and special equipment and facilities are needed.

(4) You can't drink or eat for 6 hours before the procedure (otherwise, vomiting is possible and this would be extremely dangerous during GA).

(5) There are additional costs regarding theatre fees and Anaesthetists fee ( however medicare provides up to 70% rebate on the anaesthetists fee)

Are there any circumstances under which general anesthesia should be used?
Exceptional circumstances include treatment for certain groups of special needs patients, procedures which would be very unpleasant if you were conscious (such as very complex extractions of bony impacted wisdom teeth), certain other types of oral surgery, and people with an extreme anxiety of dental procedures for whom conscious IV sedation isn't enough (although IV sedation works fine for about 97% of people with a high anxiety of dental procedures).

If it's extractions that really terrify you, it may be possible to be put to sleep for the extractions and then have fillings etc. done under conscious sedation with local anaesthetic. However, general anaesthesia is not widely on offer, and must be carried out in a hospital, in the UK at least.

How is it administered?

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