Natural and Effective Ways to Deal with Dental Anxiety

Hi, everybody. I'm Dr. Sandhya Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. Welcome to the Holistic Dentistry Podcast, the show that gives you the tips and tools to detoxify your mouth for a healthier body. As we explore together the root cause of disease. Remember, you're not healthy until your mouth is healthy, so take care of it in the most natural way.

Welcome to today's show on dental anxiety. I really want to address this topic because so many of you have phobia of the dentist, you actually avoid the dentist. And actually worse things happen when you avoid the dentist. Why do we avoid the dentist? It's simple. We think something dreadful is going to happen. You're going to experience a lot of pain, and who wants that? But what's the problem? If you're avoiding the dentist, you're actually going to run exactly into what you don't want. What we resist persists. You probably have heard that saying many times. If you avoid the dentist, then you usually come in when you do have pain. When you have pain, it's already difficult for us to get you numb and you will experience more pain in order for us to try to fix the problem. So the best way if you're fearful of the dentist is to actually go in regularly, have your regular checkups, and if the problem is small, fix it then in order to avoid a pain painful experience. Because if you present in the office only doing an emergency situation, often this treatment will turn into more fear because the pain that you will be experiencing and us trying to fix an abscess will reinforce your fear, leading to complete avoidance in the future when you go in for your dental appointment. For those of you that are fearful of the dentist, I highly encourage you to be completely honest with your dentist and say, you know what, I really hate being here. You know, nothing against you, I'm really afraid sweating right now. You know, my heart rate is increasing. Just be honest about your anxiety. And for some people, it's just a little bit of anxiety. You get a little bit of increased heart rate, but for some of you, it's really difficult to sit in the chair. I remember one of our dear patients came in after not being at the dentist for 15 years and he said, you know, I can't even sit in that chair. And it was fine. In our initial consultation when we met, we actually sat at a table, not in a dental chair. We sat, I listened to him, we talked about what the options are, you know, just, just for us to meet to get to know each other. And that's Important sometimes. So if you're really fearful, call a dental office and say, you know what, I really would just like to meet the dentist. And of course you're going to have to probably pay for that visit a nominal fee, but at least you get to meet the dentist, talk to them to see if you can connect with that person, Whoever you decide your practitioner to be and to take care of you, you must have a trust in that person, an instinct that this is the right practitioner for you. So otherwise you're never going to get over that fear. So call the dental office, ask them for just an in person consultation that doesn't include an exam, just for you to feel comfortable with that dentist. And if you feel comfortable with them, then you know they'll take it slow. If it's somebody that really listens to you and understands you, they'll take your time with you. They to make sure that you are comfortable. Very, very important for us to identify early how anxious you are about your appointments. If you're already in the middle of the treatment and you develop an anxiety attack or you know what's gonna happen is you're gonna require more dental anesthetic, you're gonna experience actually more pain because your pain perception will be increased. How do we assess your anxiety in the dental office? Well, blood pressure is the number one way for us to tell how anxious you are. And some of my patients, of course, when they're there for me to remove a tooth or do a cavitation, I could see the blood pressure already skyrocketing without me doing anything. Because the mind is such a powerful thing for us and it really can have a big impact on the body. A pulse rate, of course, too. Sometimes I've had patients with, with a pulse of like 120, almost like, you know, they're walking on a treadmill because they're so anxious. So let's dive into what can you do as a patient in order to help your body relax because you are in control of your body, or at least we hope so. I tell myself that in order to calm ourselves down, to be able to go through an event that is not stressful, number one thing that you can do is really simple. It doesn't cost you anything, is just practice breathing. So diaphragmatic breathing is an important one. Slow breathing in and out and maybe listening to some relaxing music or a meditation or guided meditation becomes very important. So if, you know, you have a dental appointment, listen to something that'll help calm your amygdala, which is the worry center in the brain and reinforce the fact that you are safe and you are okay. There's a couple different apps out there that you can utilize. I don't have any agreement, financial interest in these apps that I'm going to be mentioning, but I think these are good solutions, such as Braintap. Also, the tapping solution is an app. Both of those I've used myself, and I think they have really good actually, dental anxiety tracks. So, for example, the tapping solution I know is, has dental anxiety that you can listen to while you're in a dental chair or right before your appointment. And for those of you that are not familiar with a tapping solution, basically you're using actually your fingers to tap different areas of the body. And you tap above your eyebrow, you tap on the side of the eyes, you tap on the top of your head, right underneath the chin, the collarbone. And this kind of tapping actually helps to calm your body down. The brain tap actually utilizes sound and guided imagery in order to calm the mind. And I know they also have a dental anxiety track. So try one of these things next time you have a stressful dental appointment. Of course, we have hypnosis, acupuncture, and just actually positive reinforcement affirmations that you can use. One of the things that when you're in the dental chair, in order for me to calm my patients down, I actually have a stage stop signaling communication. Because when you're with a mouth open, it's hard for you to communicate to your dentist, oh, you know, this hurts, or, you know, and the worst thing you could do is actually pull away or move in the process of having something done. Stop signaling essentially means, you know, if you have a problem, you want to stop for whatever reason, you need to take a breath of air or you need to sit up because maybe you have a little claustrophobia, you need just raise your left hand, and I know that's the signal for stopping. There's also other things besides the behavioral modification therapies that we can do. I want to talk about some natural ingestibles some of you may be familiar with. CBD oil. It's really present everywhere nowadays. And CBD oils have been shown in clinical trials to support people who are anxious. It actually logs onto the receptors, cannabinoid receptors, that are present on the brain to calm down the mind and provide relaxation. I like CBD oil. The only problem, it is not really a regulated supplement. So we don't know how much CBD oil is really in the product. So some products might say, oh, it's 1,000 milligrams of CBD unless it's a reputable company. And you don't really know that you exactly are getting a thousand milligrams of CBD in that oil or in that capsule. So try to work with the CBD oil that is recommended by your physician, by your dentist or a company that is actually reputable. And you know, it doesn't contain any thc. The nice thing about CBD oil also is non habit forming and it's anti inflammatory compared to THC which can be habit forming. And CBD oil, what it is is really an extract from the hemp plant. So it's absolutely vegan and can be used. For those of you that are strict vegans, chamomile is a great plant that also aids in relaxation, especially a good therapeutic like chamomile tea. It's something that you can actually prepare for yourself, take with you. You can drink it cold as well. And it really helps to provide a sense of calm while you're in the dental office. In terms of ingestible plants and oils. I love this product from integrative therapeutics called Lovella. And Lovella I'm actually using at our office. If I have somebody who is anxious, they're just about to undergo a procedure. We use actually a cocktail of CBD and Lovella capsule to be able to calm them down. A lot of patients actually end up actually getting sleepy from this. Lavella is also known as Siloxan which is studied purified lavender oil that's been put in a capsule that you essentially swallow. And the nice thing about this is non habit forming oral lavender essential oil. And it's been shown in several clinical studies that it actually promotes relaxation. You can take one or two tablets, but what I've seen with my patients is actually one capsule and actually provides great anxiety relief and usually takes about 30 minutes for you to actually feel the difference. And of course, because it's non habit forming, you can actually take Lovella every night to also aid in sleep and relaxation. So how is this derived? Silexane or Lovella is derived from fresh flowering tops of the lavender plant. And essentially it's through steam distillation that we extract the active therapeutics of the lavender. So I hope I've given you some great tips for natural things that you can do in the dental office. One last thing I want to mention is aromatherapy. For those of you that you know don't feel comfortable ingesting something, you can actually just use purified lavender oil and not any lavender oil. I highly encourage you to find a therapeutic lavender oil that is cold extract or cold pressed so you can really get all those natural relaxing benefits of the lavender. And what you can do, you can actually just inhale it. Studies have shown that even just inhaling lavender will help to calm you down and provide relaxation. You can also put it on your pulse point and occasionally just take a whiff of your wrist as you're sitting there at the dental office. Below in the notes, please check out the reference that I put in there. There's a great article for those of you that like science that describes all the relaxation technique and modalities we have to help you relax. And of course, if you want something deeper, let's say you have a lot of anxiety. I highly recommend you talk to your dentist about getting IV sedation. We work always with great anesthesiologists that can take good care of you. Basically, you go to sleep and you wake up, everything's done. Or you can try an oral sedative. If lavender essential oil is not strong enough, depending on your dental trauma that you had in the past, I highly recommend you ask your dentist for a prescription anti anxiety medication such as Xanax or Halcyon, which helps you relax in the chair and actually provides you a deeper level of sedation so you can go through your procedure. And these can even be surgical procedures. I would probably say 40% of my patients choose to opt for oral sedative when I do major things such as extractions, dental implants and sinuses left. And with that, the quick tip for today, try lavender oil for inhalation just to help you relax, not just in the dental office, but for any kind of anxiety, including for example, traveling or the fear of flight.

Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please make sure you check out the show notes for any links mentioned in the show. If you like today's show, please invite your friends to listen as well. That would mean a lot to me. Do you have a question you'd like me to answer? Message me on Instagram. Dr. Sanda, this is Dr. Sandha and remember, your mouth is the gateway to your health, so take care of it in the most natural and best way possible.