9420 Mira Mesa Blvd Suite D
San Diego, CA 92126
At San Diego Sleep Apnea Centers we offer a range of treatment options for sleep apnea. If snoring or obstructed breathing is a problem, call Dr. Sigafoos today to learn how we can help you breathe easier.
Left untreated, sleep apnea can cause serious health problems, so contact us now to schedule an examination.
New and safe sedation dentistry with La Jolla area sedation dentist Dr. Gary Sigafoos means you can have years of dental treatments done quickly while you're lightly sedated, with little or no discomfort. If you've been putting up with discomfort, hiding your smile, or delaying scheduling dental work because you're too busy, your life is about to change. Make a sedation dentistry consultation appointment today with Dr. Sigafoos.
Gary Sigafoos, D.D.S., in the La Jolla area accepts Delta Dental® insurance. Our experienced team at San Diego Sleep Apnea Centers will file your insurance claim for you.
We want your dental treatment to be affordable for you. We're committed to helping you maintain your life-long oral health.
For comfortable tooth cleaning in the La Jolla, California area, Dr. Gary Sigafoos is known for having a gentle touch. The friendly team at San Diego Sleep Apnea Centers provides dental hygiene treatments for a whiter smile.
Maintaining good dental hygiene is the foundation for healthy teeth and gums. We're committed to helping you have a lifetime of oral health.
If you need gum disease treatment, La Jolla area gum disease dentist, Dr. Sigafoos offers extensive experience. Unhealthy gums can be a risk factor for more serious health problems if not treated promptly.
Our professional team will assess your situation and create a personalized treatment plan. We're committed to your life-long healthy gums and teeth.
4698 Convoy Street Suite 203
San Diego, CA 92111
New and safe sedation dentistry with San Diego area sedation dentist Dr. Gary Sigafoos means you can have years of dental treatments done quickly while you're lightly sedated, with little or no discomfort. If you've been putting up with discomfort, hiding your smile, or delaying scheduling dental work because you're too busy, your life is about to change. Make a sedation dentistry consultation appointment today with Dr. Sigafoos.
If you need gum disease treatment, San Diego area gum disease dentist, Dr. Sigafoos offers extensive experience. Unhealthy gums can be a risk factor for more serious health problems if not treated promptly.
Our professional team will assess your situation and create a personalized treatment plan. We're committed to your life-long healthy gums and teeth.
Gary Sigafoos, D.D.S., in the San Diego area accepts Delta Dental® insurance. Our experienced team at San Diego Sleep Apnea Centers will file your insurance claim for you.
We want your dental treatment to be affordable for you. We're committed to helping you maintain your life-long oral health.
San Diego area gum disease dentist Gary Sigafoos, D.D.S. has extensive experience with gum grafting. If you're suffering from exposed roots or receding gums, we can help.
Our caring, professional team can perform the periodontal surgery you need. You'll once again be able to enjoy having healthy teeth and gums.
Dr. Sigafoos has extensive experience providing gingivitis treatments in the San Diego area. Bleeding gums can lead to more serious health problems if not treated promptly.
Our friendly, professional team will evaluate your needs and design a personal treatment plan. We'll help you have healthy gums and teeth for life.
32282 Camino Capistrano
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
The friendly, caring staff of Absolute Smile, Inc. in the San Juan Capistrano, California area strive to make you feel comfortable and well-cared for at your dentist appointment. Robert Kluss, D.D.S. is committed to serving you and your family's dental needs, year after year. Come and see what we have to offer in a professional setting where top-notch customer service still matters.
San Juan Capistrano area Invisalign® dentist Robert Kluss, D.D.S. is happy to provide your new clear braces. At Absolute Smile, Inc., we want you to have the straight teeth and beautiful smile you desire.
We're happy to assess your needs create your individual treatment plan for braces. You may be able to have your new Invisalign® aligners sooner than you think!
There are a variety of payment options available to our valued patients. Absolute Smile, Inc. accepts debit cards, credit cards, checks and cash, and even offers convenient monthly payment plans for those who qualify. Call our San Juan Capistrano area dental office today to discuss the right financial options for you.
Now you don't have to miss work to tend to your dental needs. At Absolute Smile, Inc., Dr. Kluss recognizes you have important business to attend to during the workday, and offers convenient early-morning appointments to accommodate your schedule in the San Juan Capistrano, CA area.
Absolute Smile, Inc. is a trusted San Juan Capistrano area NTI-tss plus provider. Our highly-trained team fit you with a custom bite guard designed to relieve headaches and migraines caused by jaw clenching during sleep.
Each person is unique. Our experienced team will provide you with the individualized care you deserve for your situation.
Dental Care Of Oceanside
3776 Mission Ave # 138
Oceanside, CA, 92058-1459
Layton, Christopher D.D.S.
603 Vista Way
Oceanside, CA, 92054-6440
Schlange, Christy D.D.S.
605 Morse St
Oceanside, CA, 92054-5934
Jessel, Amy B D.D.S.
3935 Mission Ave # 9
Oceanside, CA, 92058-7802
Many patients face their dental appointment with a degree of anxiety. Research has shown that the largest cause of this fear is the fear of pain ... the fear that at some time during their dental care treatment they are going to be hurt.
Sedation dentists have information available about a variety of drugs known as local anesthetics, which are the safest and most effective drugs in all of medicine. Local anesthetics are a resource used in anxiety-free dentistry for the prevention and management of dental anxiety resulting from dental and surgical procedures, not to put the patient to sleep.
Local anesthetics, commonly called Novocain by patients (Novocain is no longer used, having been replaced by newer, safer, and more effective drugs), are drugs which, when injected near a nerve, prevent stimulation from reaching the brain where it would be interpreted by a person as pain. Sedation dentists interested in practicing anxiety-free dentistry know these also work very well as temporary relief of a tooth ache.
The injectable local anesthetics, used today by sedation dentists provide complete relief about 100% of the time. The duration of the numbness varies from drug to drug -- some providing short durations, while others remain effective for up to 12 hours. A doctor will select a drug for a patient that is appropriate for the type of dental care procedure they are having done.
In order to be effective during dental treatment, local anesthetics usually need to be injected. For many people, this is the most uncomfortable part of the entire dental appointment.
Local anesthetics can be administered quite comfortably. Sedation dentists and dental hygienists take pride in their ability to administer local anesthesia easily and comfortably.
The following are some of the procedures sedation dentists practicing anxiety-free dentistry might use to make this procedure more comfortable:
If an individual is fearful of receiving a local anesthetic injection, they should tell the assistant or the sedation dentist BEFORE the procedure starts. The use of conscious sedation such as laughing gas, as part of anxiety-free dentistry, can work wonders to make this procedure more comfortable for the patient.
By Stanley F. Malamed, DDS
+Jim Du Molin is a leading Internet search expert helping individuals and families connect with the right dentist in their area. Visit his author page.
All too frequently, a planned visit to the dentist is looked on with a degree of dread and foreboding. This is referred to as dental anxiety.
Dental anxiety is not unusual, for it is quite natural for a person to be uncomfortable when placed in a position in which they feel that they are vulnerable, as occurs in the dental chair.
It is important that a patient tell the doctor if they have any dental anxiety related to their planned dental treatment. Keeping their fears hidden can only lead to a much more unpleasant experience for the patient and, in more extreme circumstances, may even increase the likelihood of certain emergencies occurring, such as fainting.
Once the sedation dentist is aware of the patient's dental anxiety and fears, there are many ways in which they may be addressed. In some cases, simply discussing the planned procedure is all that is necessary to alleviate the patient's dental anxiety.
When this is not enough, other highly effective and safe sedation techniques can be used to alleviate dental anxiety. If the technique involves the administration of a drug, it is termed conscious sedation dentistry.
The most readily available routes of conscious sedation are: oral, inhalation, intravenous and intramuscular. For extremely fearful dental patients, general anesthesia may be required.
Many dentists will prescribe a sedative drug to be taken by mouth prior to the planned treatment. If the individual has an even greater degree of dental anxiety, the doctor may prescribe an oral conscious sedative to be taken at home one hour prior to going to sleep on the evening before the appointment.
If the drug is administered at home, it is IMPERATIVE that the patient NOT DRIVE A CAR to the appointment. Patients receiving oral conscious sedation are not permitted to drive a car or operate a motor vehicle for 24 hours following their appointment.
Commonly administered oral conscious sedatives include: Valium, Halcion, Dalmane, and Versed. Oral conscious sedation dentistry is most effective in the management of milder degrees of dental fear.
The use of inhalation conscious sedation (nitrous oxide and oxygen) has been a mainstay of sedation techniques in dentistry for generations and still represents the most frequently employed technique. Commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous oxide-oxygen is used by more than 35% of all U.S. dentists.
An advantage of this technique of inhalation conscious sedation is that most people receiving it recover promptly and may be permitted to leave the dental office unescorted and resume normal activities immediately.
Inhalation conscious sedation is most effective with mild to moderate degrees of dental anxiety.
Though not as readily available as other conscious sedation techniques, intravenous (IV) conscious sedation is a safe and highly effective technique for management of moderate to more severe levels of dental anxiety.
Sedation dentists who employ IV conscious sedation have received specialized advanced training and certification by their state Board of Dental Examiners.
Drugs administered intravenously are more effective than the same drugs taken orally. A major benefit of some of these IV drugs is amnesia.
The patient will have no memory of some, or even all, of the dental treatment. This will lead the patient to think they were asleep during the treatment when, in reality, they were awake, but comfortable, at all times.
During the procedure, monitoring devices will be attached to the patient. These devices monitor the effectiveness of one's breathing (pulse oximeter), blood pressure and heart rate, increasing the safety of the procedure.
Patients receiving IV conscious sedation are not permitted to leave the dental office unescorted at the conclusion of the procedure.
Less commonly employed for adult patients, intramuscular (IM) conscious sedation is a relatively effective technique for management of moderate levels of dental anxiety and fear.
IM conscious sedation is more often employed in the management of fearful children. Sedative drugs are injected into the muscle of the upper arm or the thigh, producing sedation in approximately 20 to 30 minutes.
Dentists using IM conscious sedation have received specialized advanced training and certification by their state Board of Dental Examiners and will employ the same monitors described in the IV conscious sedation section.
Though the techniques of conscious sedation described above effectively manage more than 90% of all fearful dental patients, some may require general anesthesia in order to relieve their dental anxiety during their dental treatment.
When general anesthesia is used, the sedation dentist will employ a person who is trained and certified in general anesthesia to manage the patient while the dentist carries out the dental treatment.
This person will be a dentist anesthesiologist, a medical anesthesiologist, or, in some cases, a nurse anesthetist, whose sole responsibility is to ensure the safety of the sleeping (unconscious) patient while the dentistry is being done.
Sleep dentists using general anesthesia have received a minimum of two years of specialized advanced training and have been certified by their state Board of Dental Examiners. Monitors will be employed to help ensure the safety of the procedure.
Not all dentists employ conscious sedation techniques to relieve dental anxiety. It is important for patients to voice concerns and dental fears with their dentist during their first visit to the office.
The dentist will seek to work out a treatment plan that will best accommodate the patients needs. In some situations it may be necessary to refer a patient to a doctor who has these techniques available.
By Stanley F. Malamed, DDS
+Jim Du Molin is a leading Internet search expert helping individuals and families connect with the right dentist in their area. Visit his author page.
