Does the thought of going to the dentist scare you?  If so, you are not alone.  While everyone agrees oral health is extremely important, the main problem encountered during routine dental treatment is anxiety and fear called dental phobia. Even a medical treatment of the oral region under local anesthesia procedures is a cause for irregular visits in dental clinics, which, in consequence, may lead to an increase more severe forms of dental diseases. Clinical hypnosis can be a non-invasive therapeutic option to increase treatment comfort both for the patients and dentists.

Hypnotic dentistry or Hypnodontics, is defined as the art and science of using hypnosis to induce comfortable and painfree dental visits. Hypnosis is used to reduce stress caused by anxiety and fear or dental phobia and induce anesthesia so that less medication is used. Hard to manage or on co-operative patients and pediatrics often present the majority of problems the dentist encounters in their daily routine. They take extra time and require special consideration by the dentist and the assisting staff. There are multiple reasons why such patients are fearful, tense, nervous and anxious before, during, and even after the dental visit. These patients will complain of extreme anxiety prior to a simple check-up and repeatedly request tranquilizers to help them cope up with the stress. Hypnosis can easily alleviate the tension, nervousness and unreasonable fear of pain often exhibited by these patients. Hypnosis has also been known to be beneficial in elimination or reduction of bruxism (i.e. teeth grinding).  The hypnotherapist should meet with this type of dental patient two or three days prior to the scheduled dental appointment. Hypnosis may be used independently or as an additional option with other forms of treatment for best results.1

  1. Hypnodontics: Role of hypnosis in oral health;  Mamta Malik1, Pruthvi Raj H V, RajKumar Maurya, Sanjeev Laller, Chandresh Shukl, Ravinder S Saini,International Journal of Recent Trends in Science And Technology, September 2016, pp 188-190