TA S T E BE WELL S A V A N N A H
All Smiles How dentists are making patients more comfortable in the chair Written by ANDREA GOTO
IF YOU’D JUST as soon sit in an electric chair as you would a dentist chair, you aren’t alone. In fact, a 2018 study from DentaVox revealed that more than 61 percent of people worldwide suffer from dental fear. It makes sense; there’s the worry of pain, the sense of entrapment, the anticipation of what’s to come. The bad news is, dentophobia is anything but healthy if it prevents you from regular checkups, and it actually ends up hurting you more in the long run, both in the mouth and the wallet. “A lot of dental problems are very easy
and inexpensive to fix when it’s early in the process,” explains Gladden Dental’s Dr. Eric Gladden. So, here’s the rub: if you really don’t like being in the dentist chair, the key to avoiding lengthy and expensive procedures, is to — you guessed it — get back in the dentist chair for regular checkups. Luckily, many dentists have adopted technologies, techniques and practices to help address and ease your fears. Fear of pain is the leading reason people cite for avoiding the dentist. No one wants a scrape or a shot, but it’s important to keep in mind that dentistry has moved far beyond
the days of pulling teeth with pliers as patients grimace and bear it. You aren’t supposed to feel pain during a dental procedure. Assuming you have an adept dentist who can take torturous pain off the dental tray with local anesthetic, there’s still the fact that they use needles to administer it — oftentimes an intimidating, silver syringe of cartoonish proportions. Dr. Scott Cohen of Cohen Dental uses what’s called “The Wand” to replace the conventional syringe as often as possible. The Wand, which looks more like an IV than a syringe, is a computer-assisted system
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