Doctor Elizabeth Kilpatrick Fox on relieving dental anxiety
Elizabeth K: I have a lot of patients who are very anxious about going to the dentist. And, I think first off, we really just try to listen to them, because they’ll tell us about their experiences that they didn’t love. And we don’t want to repeat those experiences. The first thing is, we keep the lines of communication open and we make sure that they know that we’re here to help them and, again, not judge them. Now once we get them, and they’re ready to proceed, we use a combination of a couple different medications, very simple, swallow them, and they’re very relaxed and we do the treatment that we’ve agreed upon. And they’re very happy with how they’re not anxious and when it’s finished, they’re very happy, so it works out really well. They’re calm. I’m calm. And they’re thrilled with the work.