Nervous patients & sedation in Rugby · the honest guide

Written by Dr Savan Zala, implant and sedation dentist at Rugby Smiles (BDS, MFGDP RCSEng, MSc Implants) · Reviewed September 2026

The short answer: no, IV sedation does not put you to sleep, and that is exactly why it is safe enough to do in a dental practice. You stay awake enough to respond to us, but you feel deeply calm, the time disappears, and most people remember very little of the appointment afterwards. It is often called sleep dentistry, which is a good description of how it feels and a poor description of what it is.

I give sedation to people who have avoided the dentist for ten, twenty, sometimes thirty years, and the question they all ask first is whether they will be asleep. The honest answer needs a little more than yes or no, so here is what happens from the moment the cannula goes in to the moment you are back on your own sofa, what it feels like at each stage, and where it differs from the general anaesthetic most people are picturing.

The part that surprises people most is the memory. Midazolam causes what is called anterograde amnesia: you do not lay down memories while it is working. People tell me the appointment felt like ten minutes when it was ninety, and that they remember arriving and remember going home and almost nothing in between. For someone who has spent years rehearsing the worst version of a dental visit, not having a memory of it at all is a big part of the relief.

For the great majority of nervous adults, sedation plus good local anaesthetic does everything a general anaesthetic would do with far less risk and far less disruption. A general anaesthetic is reserved for specific situations, usually very complex surgery or patients who cannot cooperate with sedation, and is arranged through hospital rather than done here.

Almost anything. Fillings, a deep clean, extractions including wisdom teeth, dental implants, root canal treatment, and long combined appointments that get years of avoided work done in one sitting. Because you are relaxed and time passes quickly, we can often do in a single sedated visit what would otherwise take three or four appointments, which for many people is the difference between finally getting it sorted and never starting.

The one thing we cannot do is a first examination under sedation. We need to have met you, checked your medical history and agreed a plan before the sedation appointment. That first meeting can be a free chat with Georgia, our treatment co-ordinator, in a normal room with no chair, or you can start with our two-minute nervous patient questionnaire before speaking to anyone at all.