Comfortable, Relaxed Procedures
I’m a big believer in discussing with patients their options for sedation, for making sure they’re relaxed, making sure that they have a sense of control in what’s going on. Obviously, we’re doing the procedures. I’m doing the oral surgery. But from years and years of doing this, I feel that patients having some control over what to expect the day of surgery, their recovery, the things that they can do to actively participate on the front end with getting their bodies ready, minimizing inflammation, making some lifestyle changes before and after surgery is really helpful to get them in a better state of mind to go through surgery. Then the other part of that is sedation, so we do offer a lot of sedation options for patients, including minimal conscious sedation, where we use certain sedative medications along with nitrous oxide. And patients do a great job. They really are comfortable during the procedure. The majority of them don’t recall the procedure. So that’s always very, very helpful for patients. But I think more than anything, to let them understand what the process looks like and what to expect before and after really makes the experience much better for them.