My new dentist has a huge fish tank set outside his exam window. He has colorful posters on his ceiling, and over the dental chair he has a computer that flashes stunning scenery, images of people and ocean scenes. He doesn’t wear the white lab coat that I remember from my past. Instead he wears loud Hawaian shirts, and at times puts on a false nose and glasses. He offers earphones to dull the sound of the drill, and the armpads of the dental chair softly vibrate. This feature can be switched on and off by a lever at my feet. He also has colorful decals on his surgical mask and gloves.

Fairly new on the market to ease pain and anxiety The Alpha-Stim SCS is being looked at hard for management of pain and to reduce the anxiety of the dreaded dental visit. The unit is a cranial electrotherapy stimulator that attaches to the patient by clips on the ears. You are given a small control box where you control the stimulation it generates. You may feel a slight tingling under the electrodes, but some test subjects reported feeling nothing at all. There are no known side effects to this type of pain control. Ask your dentist if he has these units available. Right now, they are currently in use in the and slowly spreading to other countries.

Virtual Reality Goggles

Using computers to recreate an artificial world, virtual reality goggles are used by some dentists and offered to their patient to minimize the stress and discomfort of the visit. Some dentists that use these maintain that not only do the virtual goggles help the patient to relax, but they also help them to forget where they are. Stereoscopic displays on small screens appear inside the goggle’s head, allowing the patient the opportunity to enter mentally these worlds and interact (again mentally) with all the inhabitants there.