If the thought of sitting in a dental chair makes you anxious, you’re not alone. Dental anxiety affects a significant portion of the population, and for many people it’s the primary reason they avoid the care they need.
Sleep Dentistry — formally called IV sedation, “conscious sedation” or “twilight sleep” — was developed precisely for this problem. We were the first to bring it to Southern Utah over 30 years ago, and it has transformed the experience of dentistry for hundreds of patients.
We start an IV — usually in your arm — and administer a combination of medications that produce a deeply comfortable, relaxed state. You’re not fully asleep in the way general anesthesia works; you’re in a controlled twilight state. You can respond to simple directions, but you’re calm, unaware of discomfort, and most importantly: you’ll remember very little, if anything, about the experience afterward.
The gag reflex is suppressed. Anxiety disappears. Time passes without notice.
Some offices offer oral sedation — pills taken before an appointment. The problem with this approach is that it’s imprecise. Pills affect every person differently, the dosage can’t be adjusted mid-procedure, and they can’t be reversed if something unexpected happens. We offer oral sedation by patient request but prefer the safer, more predicatable IV route.
With IV sedation, we have real-time control. We can increase, decrease, or reverse the sedation nearly instantly. All the primary medications we use have reversal agents. This gives us a much larger safety margin — which is why IV sedation is widely considered the safest method of dental sedation available.
One important thing to understand: Sleep Dentistry isn’t limited to complex procedures. You can have a routine cleaning under sedation if that’s what makes you comfortable. You can have multiple procedures — implants, extractions, crowns — completed in a single visit.
Because Dr. Boren is fully trained in all aspects of dentistry, we’re able to safely keep patients sedated for longer treatment sessions, usually accomplishing in one visit what might otherwise take four or five appointments.
Sleep Dentistry is a good option if you:
We offer complimentary consultations. If you’ve been putting off dental care because of anxiety or fear, please call us — this may be exactly the solution you’ve been looking for.
