Patients with dental anxiety

Does the mere thought of dental treatment or the sound of a drill make you feel sweaty, dizzy, panicky or frightened? You don't have to be ashamed of this - it happens to many people. Many only make the unloved trip to the dentist when the toothache has become almost unbearable. With or without pain: we take your anxiety seriously and have many years of experience specialising in the needs of anxious patients.

Experience shows that the roots of a pronounced fear of the dentist usually lie in childhood, when dental treatment was often associated with pain or unpleasant examinations.

Many anxious patients describe traumatic dental experiences when it comes to dental anxiety. When asked: ‘Why are you afraid, what happened?’, I usually hear that patients were taken by surprise or treated against their will. Or they felt that they were at the mercy of the situation or the dentist. That's why, in addition to treating anxious patients, we also make every effort to treat our young patients with care (see paediatric dentistry).

With us, you always know what the next step is and what is going on. In most cases, it only takes a little training to make the often panicky behaviour patterns and fears gradually disappear.

Dental anxiety can considerably reduce the quality of life and is often associated with feelings of shame (especially if the dentist or those around you show too little understanding and empathy). This doesn't have to be the case!

Today, we have numerous options at our disposal to make a visit to the dentist as pleasant as possible, especially for anxious patients. During your visit you can expect

• friendly, bright dental practice with a living room atmosphere in 1060 Vienna
• A lot of understanding and patience
• detailed explanations and
• on request, all treatments under local or general anaesthetic with Dr. Dr. Felix Wick, if indicated (e.g. for wisdom tooth removal)

I always try to teach my patients that toothache and this agonising fear of the dentist don't have to be necessary. Nothing is done against your will and everything is only done after consultation - and, above all, enquiry. This means that the patient never has the feeling of losing control. As described in the video, sometimes all it takes is gaining trust to gradually overcome the often panicky behaviour patterns (more on this below).

In preparation for your appointment at our practice, we have summarised the appointment process for you: 

The important thing is We will discuss your wishes for treatment together. X-ray images are used to determine which dental treatments are urgent. Health comes before aesthetics for the first time. Even if many patients with dental anxiety only appear when it becomes visually noticeable, the primary goal is still to treat bad teeth in order to create the basis for aesthetic tooth correction.

And of course these are often the unloved dental treatments that are associated with great pain. However, these can be avoided with local anaesthetics and empathy. That's why communication is a key issue for us: we explain all procedures before and during treatment. To do this, we give our patients tools (a magic wand for children) or agree on signals for a ‘Stop!’. This also includes careful progress with plenty of breaks and not simply drilling wildly. We pay close attention to how patients react and, depending on their consent, the dental treatment is continued.

Success starts with the little things: If you can treat pain or carry out urgently needed procedures in the first session and the patient agrees to follow-up appointments such as oral hygiene or further treatment.

Ideally, you should plan the first visit to the dentist with your child at a very early age so that no treatments are necessary and the child will remember the appointment as a positive event. Has your child already undergone treatment and suffers from dental anxiety? Then a particularly careful and child-orientated approach is required for future treatments. As a paediatric dentist, I specialise in dealing with anxious children and use child-friendly methods and language during treatment.