Phobias and fears

The majority of people have some anxiety about dental treatment, but almost all cope and don't show it. Then there are others who cannot sleep for several days as they worry about their visit, and their imagination takes over. Usually they have been anxious since childhood because of some personal experience or they pick it up from the reaction of their parents.

Parents and children

If you are a parent it is very important that you don't convey anxiety to your children, so don't say things like 'I hate going to the dentist, it was the .....(gas/mask/blood/injection).....that frightened me'. Dentistry has changed dramatically and your children's experience is likely to be similar to an everyday event such as going to buy shoes, have a haircut or similar, where there is a need for them to get used to it, but no real anxiety. Before or at the visit don't make comments such as 'He/she won't hurt you', because you are putting ideas in their head about something hurting them, when they had never even given it a thought. Visits to the dentist can be fun for young children, who are interested in what's going on and also playing in the shop or on the X-box if they are a little older.

Another thing parents say is 'He's going to drill your tooth', which of course would put fear into anyone, and we have much more friendly ways of explaining what we are doing and why we are doing it. Some children even like to hold a mirror and watch us repairing their teeth, becoming engrossed in what's happening and forget its attached to them. It's all in the mind and we can plant good things or bad. Please help us to make your childen's experience positive and it will benefit them for the rest of their life.

The earlier they come the better so that it's less likely we will have problems to deal with.

Adults

Most adults with phobias and fears have had them for years and some event triggers their attempt to overcome them. We are fully aware and can empathise with people who have fears because dental fear possibly changed the course of the dentist's life. We'll let you into a secret, as a child and into his teens he thought he would like to become an airline pilot, but then someone told him he would have to have his teeth filled to prevent problems with changes in air pressure. He decided another career would avoid the fear of treatment. Little did he know at the time what his future career would be.

We have a variety of strategies to help depending on the degree of fear. Our success rate helping people achieve treatment goals is very high, with only two out of several hundred over the last few years needing to be referred on for treatment under general anaesthetic or sedation. Some people think these approaches should be the first course of action, but there aren't sufficient facilities, and almost all people can be helped through treatment without them.

Things we have in place to help you

Minor fears

Most people describe themselves as having severe problems with fear, but our experience shows that very few are really in that category and can be helped by straightforward approaches including:

Ambience of practice. Most people find our practice a relaxing place to be in, unlike many others, which tend to be 'clinical. The dentist wears casual clothes rather than white coats. This helps them feel calmer.

We take time to get to know you and understand your apprehension.

Treatment is carried out in a gentle way and procedures are explained and talked through as we go, which helps most people, but for the few people who prefer not to know we do as they request.

Where necessary local anaesthetic is used to make treatment comfortable. To help make the administration of local anaesthetic more comfortable we use numbing gels.

More severe fears

The main dental disease are caused by bacteria and we have technology often allowing the stabilisation of your mouth to protect your general health without the need for fillings, drilling or local anaesthetic. These technologies include HealOzone and unique to us QSIANT periodontal treatment. These are most effective when the problems are identified at an early stage, but can help even with very severe problems, but we need to assess each person to decide what is best for them.

We often arrange for those who are very fearful to visit the practice and get acclimatized to the surroundings, without having a check-up at that visit.