As dentists, we often marvel at the incredible advances that dentistry has accomplished in over the last century. From primitive beginnings came the discovery of effective numbing agents that would drastically improve the patient experience in the process of extraction and many otherwise painful dental endeavors. The ability to undergo a dental procedure without a traumatic level of pain put an end to much of the anxiety surrounding dental work and reduced the burden of stress on the practitioner who was attempting to work on a patient while keeping them still through extreme pain. Finally, the patient could be calmer and more relaxed throughout the procedure and this benefitted everyone involved.
Today, dental experiences are much less challenging to endure – still, many patients cannot withstand the necessary injection for effective freezing without an oral sedative such as a benzodiazepine or laughing gas. Injection fear is not reserved for the young – patients, young and old, regularly express this concern to their dentists. Until now, our best accommodation for local anesthetic injections was a numbing gel that anesthetized the tissue at the site of the injection. As helpful as the numbing gel was, it failed to address the only problem: nobody enjoys injections in their mouth.
How many procedures have you delayed because the very thought of local anesthetic is just too much? What if we told you that you could undergo dental treatments like cavity filling with no anesthetic at all? It might sound too good to be true, but this is modern dentistry after all! Technology has your back with Solea®.
What is Solea®?
Solea® is a CO2 dental laser that is improving the patient experience with every successful procedure. This powerful laser removes hard tissues (like teeth) and soft tissues (like gums) instantly while offering pinpoint accuracy. Solea® operates at a frequency which surpasses what pain receptors can tolerate and therefore bypasses them. The nerve of the tooth cannot transmit pain signals to the brain because it cannot ‘read’ the frequency of the laser. Patients report feeling no sensation at all, or a slight cold sensation while being treated with Solea®.
The Benefits
The benefits of this leading-edge technology should be noted for dentist and patients alike. Dental professionals often spend as much time preparing the patient and clinical environment for their procedure as they do performing the procedure itself. While this time is typically spent letting the patient acclimate to the environment in order to feel more comfortable, anticipation of the procedure can cause some patient’s anxiety to rise.
Anxious patients often suffer from extreme fatigue and muscle tension as a result of their adrenaline during a procedure. This can significantly extend procedure duration since it is challenging for the dentist to do intricate work on a moving mouth, and anxious patients are inherently restless in the dental chair – this is particularly true in children or those with special needs.
Solea® technology offers patients relief from the anxious anticipation that they have felt so often. Patients are less hesitant to get into the chair and get to work, since they aren’t preparing for their nervous systems to be distressed. A calm patient is a still patient, and nothing decreases appointment time more than a still patient.
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Working with Solea®
Dentists typically limit their work to one side of the dental arch or the other, so that the patient retains feeling in one side enough to speak and limit unnecessary drooling. This has been a challenge to clients who want to return to work following a procedure. With Solea®, your dentist will be able to work in each of the quadrants of your mouth on the same day if necessary – and you won’t have to wait for the freezing to fade before your mouth feels yours again. With Solea®, patients are in and out with no lasting sensations and are able to return to their regular routines as soon as they leave the dental chair.
What is Solea Sleep?
Solea Sleep is a simple to administer, low-power application on the Solea All-Tissue Dental Laser that provides rapid relief for snoring by tightening the soft palate and reducing vibrations that cause patients to snore. Unlike other laser sleep treatments that require up to 4 sessions lasting 30 minutes each, Solea Sleep is a single, non-surgical treatment that takes 5 minutes to administer with long-lasting results.
If you have questions about this or other services offered by our general dentist, contact our clinic today.
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