Victoria IV Sedation Dentist
What is IV Sedation?
A lot of dental offices use terms such as “sleep dentistry” or “twilight sleep” when talking about IV sedation. This is confusing, because it suggests that IV sedation involves being put to sleep. In reality, you remain conscious during IV sedation. You will also be able to understand and respond to requests from your dentist.
However, you may not remember much about what went on because of two factors: firstly, in most people, IV sedation induces a state of deep relaxation and a feeling of not being bothered by what’s going on. Secondly, the drugs used for IV sedation can produce either partial or full memory loss (amnesia) for the period of time when the drug first kicks in until it wears off. As a result, time will appear to pass very quickly and you will not recall much, or perhaps even nothing at all, of what happened. So it may, indeed, appear as if you were “asleep” during the procedure
Is it safe? Are there any contraindications?
IV sedation is EXTREMELY safe. Purely statistically speaking, it’s even safer than local anaesthetic on its own!
However, contraindications include pregnancy, known allergy to benzos, alcohol intoxication, CNS depression, and some instances of glaucoma. Cautions include psychosis, impaired lung or kidney or liver function, and advanced age. Heart disease is generally not a contraindication.
What are the main advantages of IV Sedation
* IV sedation tends to be the method of choice if you don’t want to be aware of the procedure – you “don’t want to know”. The alternative in the US is oral sedation using Halcion, but oral sedation is not as reliably effective as IV sedation.
* The onset of action is very rapid, and drug dosage and level of sedation can be tailored to meet the individual’s needs. This is a huge advantage compared to oral sedation, where the effects can be very unreliable. IV sedation, on the other hand, is both highly effective and higly reliable.
* The maximum level of sedation which can be reached with IV is deeper than with oral or inhalation sedation.
* Benzodiazepines produce amnesia for the procedure
* The gag reflex is hugely diminished – people receiving IV sedation rarely experience difficulty with gagging. However, if minimizing a severe gag reflex is the main objective, inhalation sedation is usually tried first. Only if that fails to diminish the gag reflex should IV sedation be used for this purpose.
* Can be ideal for those with a phobia of dental injections.
* Unlike General Anaesthesia or Deep Sedation, conscious IV sedation doesn’t really introduce any compromises per se in terms of carrying out the actual procedures, because people are conscious and they can cooperate with instructions, and there is no airway tube involved.
