Healing Smiles
counselling, dentistry and hypnosis in Cardiff

Dental Anxiety

General dental anxiety is specific anxiety limitated to dental procedures. You may be nervous of dentistry in general or of specific dental procedures. Your anxiety may present in a number of ways. You may feel plain scared. You may gag badly when the dentist tries to do anything in your mouth. You may think that the dentist will hurt you or harm you in some ways and you would avoid going to the dentist as much as possible.

Needle Phobia

You may be scared of injections in general or medical use of injections or only dental injections. Again most people suffering from injection phobia will avoid injections in any way they can. This may mean you can't go to the dentist for treatment or even miss out on the holiday of a life time because you cannot accept injections for immunisation.

Dental Care

There are many good dentists out there who do excellent dentistry and who see nervous patients. Many people do not have any problems in finding these dentists. However people suffering from extreme dental anxiety may find even the thought of contacting a dentist traumatising. So you may avoid seeking any help. This can sometimes go on for many years leading to suffering and deterioration of your teeth and gums . The more you avoid accessing dental care the worse your teeth may become and the worse you may feel. Some dentists are trained in sedation and/or hypnosis which they use to treat nervous patients but very few dentists are trained in counselling or psychotherapy which can help patients get over severe dental phobia.

Sedation

Drugs may be used to enable anxious patients to undergo dental treatment. The commonly used drugs are Nitrous oxide and Oxygen which is inhaled via a mask and Benzodiazepines which are injected. These drugs have their uses (and I am trained in sedation) but they do not cure your anxiety so everytime you need dental treatment you may have to find a dentist who is able to give sedation. This may limit your choice of dentist and it may make your dental treatment more expensive.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapies (CBT)

This is evidence based therapy for the treatment for phobias and anxieties. The therapist works with you to help you face your fear one step at a time until you have conquered it. The therapist helps the patient on two levels: to think differently and to behave differently. Changes in these areas automatically help reduce the anxiety that the patients feel.