Sedation Dentistry – Troy Family Dental

Sedation Dentistry – Scared of the Dentist but Need Treatment?

Sedation Dentistry- Dr. Boatman and Dr. Spencer explain it to Kent Ehrhardt

Kent Ehrhardt – Does the word dentist scare you? Do you have a real fear of your annual visit, it should be semi-annual by the way, to have your teeth checked, or even worse, do you not make the appointment because of your fear? Well this morning, we’re putting those fears to rest. Dr. Richard Boatman and Dr. Jordan Spencer from Troy Family Dental, welcome back to Great Day St. Louis, gentlemen, always a pleasure to have you.

Dr. Richard Boatman – Great to be here.

Kent Ehrhardt – Now back when I was a younger man, and you were middle-aged, you had to have a pretty major procedure in order to be sedated. This was something that you were gonna have to go in and get surgery or something else, because I can remember the dentist yanking teeth with me, you know, but that has changed along with technology like the mini dental implants that you talk about so often. Let’s talk about sedation and how things have changed.

Dr. Richard Boatman – Well it’s changed tremendously, I mean it’s estimated that 40 million people a year avoid the dentist for a lot of good reasons. Really to the detriment of their oral health and their overall health, they do for a lot of reasons. A lot of them have had bad experiences, they’ve been hurt, they’re needle phobic, they have bad gag reflexes, and they’re claustrophobic, they just don’t want anybody in their mouths, and really, their confidence suffers and their overall health suffers also.

Kent Ehrhardt – That really folds back on itself because the less we take care of our teeth, the more of these kinds of procedures we’re going to end up needing and it really snowballs before too much longer.

Dr. Richard Boatman – Yes, absolutely, so we have a lot of great, different sedation techniques Dr. Spencer will talk about.

Dr. Jordan Spencer – We found a way to help these people because we had to. There’s really different levels of sedation that we can do. The lightest is just giving a simple Valium pill and putting on the nitrous oxide, takes the edge off. The next is they can come in, and we can actually give them pills in the office and then you don’t have to get an IV. The last is actually IV sedation, and we have a nurse anesthetist come in and watch over the patient and make sure that their safety while we focus on the dentistry.

Kent Ehrhardt – And that, you know, the nitrous is good. With that, I always use to say it still hurts, but you just don’t care, it’s kind of one of those. But with the full-on sedation now, we’re talking about no pain, right?

Dr. Richard Boatman – Absolutely, the patient is resting comfortably, a lot of them are actually snoring, it’s actually extremely safe, like Dr. Spencer said, we use

Kent Ehrhardt – [Interviewer] What, the snoring or the procedure?

Dr. Richard Boatman – The snoring, yeah if they’re snoring, you know they’re breathing.

Kent Ehrhardt – Right, that’s a good point.

Dr. Richard Boatman – Yes, so we use a CRNA that has 40 years of experience. We follow all state and American dental association protocols. We use an EKG machine to monitor their heart; we monitor their blood pressure, oxygen saturation, we even use capnography to make sure that they’re exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide adequately.

Kent Ehrhardt – And there’s a very important series of questions and preparations even before you get to the office that have to take place before you even know if you’re a candidate for this kind of sedation because you have to take this kind of thing seriously. But another beauty in my estimation of this is that if you have a lot of work that needs to get done and you would normally say, all right that’s enough, one root canal is, we’ll come back we’ll do this other the other day, you can get everything accomplished at once.

Dr. Richard Boatman – Absolutely, everything completely finished. The patient is breathing on their own, they’re actually laying back taking a nap, and they wake up, and they have little or no memory of the procedure at all.

Kent Ehrhardt – All right, sounds like a great idea to me. If you want to make an appointment with Dr. Spencer or Dr. Boatman at Troy Family Dental, call the number on your screen, 618-477-8421 and ask for the happy hour special. It’s gonna be beyond pleasant, I’m telling you. You can also find them on the web, they’re good people over there, and it’s well worth finding this shop, their practice at troyfamilydental.com.

– 20 minutes from any bridge.

– That’s right, and addressing a very serious need that a lot of people