Home / Comfort & Sedation
Comfort
The most common reason
people wait ten years
is not the cost.
It is fear, and usually fear earned honestly at some point in the past. Dr. Patellis holds advanced training in IV conscious sedation anesthesia and emergency medical procedures, which means this is treated as a clinical problem to plan around rather than a personality flaw to talk you out of.
Why people come here
- Surgery and the finished teeth done by one dentist, under one roof
- Diplomate of the International Congress of Oral Implantologists
- Fellow of the Misch Institute — and faculty at its successor
- A written, itemized plan before anything is scheduled
What is available
From a conversation to full relaxation.
Talking about it first
Costs nothing and helps more than people expect. Knowing what will happen, in what order, and what the stop signal is removes most of the dread.
Local anesthetic, done properly
Slow delivery, topical first, and enough time for it to work. A great deal of dental fear traces back to being started before it was ready.
IV conscious sedation
Dr. Patellis holds advanced training in IV conscious sedation anesthesia and in the emergency medical procedures that go with it. Whether it is appropriate for you depends on your medical history and the procedure, and is agreed in advance.
Why the emergency training matters
Sedation is judged by what happens when it goes wrong.
Anybody can make a patient sleepy. The part that separates practices is what is in the room, and in the clinician’s head, if a patient reacts badly — monitoring, reversal agents, and someone who has trained for exactly that.
Dr. Patellis’s advanced training covers IV conscious sedation anesthesia together with emergency medical procedures. His post-graduate residency at York Hospital put him through hospital dentistry and medically complex patients before he ever ran his own practice.
If you are the person who has cancelled three appointments and has not been seen in a decade, say so when you call. It is not unusual here, and it changes how the first visit is scheduled — longer, slower, and with nothing done on the day you do not agree to.
Questions
Comfort, answered.
Will I be asleep?
Conscious sedation is not general anesthesia. The aim is that you are comfortable, relaxed and responsive rather than unconscious, and most people remember very little of the appointment afterwards. What is appropriate for you is discussed in advance, with your medical history in front of us.
Can I drive home?
Not after IV sedation. You will need someone to bring you and take you home, and that is arranged when the appointment is booked rather than discovered on the day.
What if I need to stop?
Then we stop. Agreeing a stop signal before starting is standard practice here and it is honored.
Start with an exam and a straight answer.
A consultation includes an examination, 3D imaging and a written, itemized plan. If implants are not the right treatment for you, Dr. Patellis will say so and tell you what is.