This video on A Discussion of Dentist Fear Dental Phobia was created in our dental implants office.

Hi this is Dr. Jeff Dorfman at The Center for Special Dentistry in New York City talking about dental phobia, or fear of the dentist. At The Center for Special Dentistry in New York City we accommodate people who are particularly afraid of the dentist. There are many reasons that people are afraid of the dentist. One of the most common is giving novocaine in a manner that is not as gentle as can be. There are many ways to make injections more comfortable, actually. One of them, for example, is actually just anesthetizing a tiny bit of the gum and letting the tissue soak in the novocaine for a few minutes before giving more. Another reason why people have pain and are afraid of the dentist is because many times dentists begin to drill teeth prematurely before novocaine has time to work. As an example I like to tell patients that if you are meeting a friend after work for happy hour after a crazy day, and have a glass of wine with your friend or a beer, after you have the first few sips of wine or beer you don’t suddenly feel relaxed. Sometimes it can take 10 or 15 minutes before you go “Ahhh” and you finally feel a little bit of the relaxation setting in. Dental novocaine works the same way. So at this practice in The Center for Special Dentistry, we frequently will give our patients 10 or 15 minutes for novocaine to work before we begin treatment on patients. We are able to do this because our practice focuses on performing low volume dentistry. Unfortunately, if a patient goes to a practice which is performing high volume dentistry and has to get a patient in and out of the dental chair in 30 minutes, they don’t have the luxury of giving them 10 or 15 minutes to wait before they get numb. These are a few examples of how people who are afraid of dentists can actually have a good experience in dentistry at The Center for Special Dentistry. Please call us!