Sleep dentistry - a dream?

My concept of 'pain management' covers physical as well as psychological pain. If you are phobic like me, you will know what I mean. If not, let me explain. I can only think of one acceptable way of undergoing dental treatment: deep asleep.

My phobia has made me spend countless hours on the internet trying to find clinics or doctors who are willing to do what I would like them to do: put me to sleep and wake me up when the job is done. I found one website, which comes very close to what I have in mind. But the clinic is on the other side of the planet and... reality might be different anyhow.

I have asked more than one dentist in clinics where they advertise the 'availability' of sleep dentistry for sedation in Bangkok, but the dentists all found different excuses not to put me to sleep. Sleep dentistry would require more planning and coordination than the standard dental clinic is organized to provide. You need to coordinate the schedules of different dentists. And you need an anesthesiologist on standby. And the proper facilities.

Sure, especially the big hospital clinics in Thailand would have access to all that and they even advertise it... but the Bangkok dentists I asked about it unfortunately all thought sleep dentistry was a silly American idea.

If you have better experience with sleep dentistry in Thailand - please, please share and I am happy to rewrite this page or add your comments in the feedback section.

Novocain

While I have had little success to get sleep dentistry, I can report that when it comes to the use of local anesthetics like Novocain or its more modern variants, the dentists in Bangkok are not stingy. I have had more than one root canal treatment and didn't feel a thing. No physical pain I mean.

Novocain and the more commonly used Lidocain are both cocaine derivatives. Cocaine without the fun factor - invented by a German - is effective. I ask for it even to have my teeth cleaned. I wish someone came up with a pill or a powder to deal with my psychological pain, which starts already before I call to make an appointment.