If dental anxiety or fear has kept you out of the chair, this is where the conversation begins. Quietly. Without judgment. Without rushing you into anything you're not ready for.
The person who cried in the parking lot before walking in. The professional who hasn't told their spouse they're terrified. The patient who hasn't been in a decade because of one bad experience as a kid.
This is the most common patient I treat.
That starts with a conversation, not a procedure. We meet you where your fear actually lives, and we move at the pace you can sustain.
Aesthetic Smile Reconstruction is a full-service dental practice in Greater Boston. It is also one of the few practices built specifically around the patient with dental anxiety, dental phobia, or a long history of avoiding dental care.
A dentist for anxious patients sees a wide range of stories. There is no single sedation patient. The one shared signal is that something about dental care has been harder than it is supposed to be.
If one of these is you, the next step changes depending on which one.
Dentistry has been a hard relationship for a lot of people. By the time someone makes it into our office, they are often carrying years of avoided care, postponed conversations, or moments that did not go well in someone else's chair. There is no version of that we have not heard.
We meet you where you walked in from.
For some patients, sedation is the answer. For many others, the room itself is doing some of the work. Comfort whether you are awake or asleep is the baseline here. Not the upsell.
Each of the things below exists because it gives the nervous system something to hold onto. They are not amenities. They are pieces of the system that lets you stay in the room without going into freeze.
The decision to sit in a chair with a particular dentist is a clinical decision. It is also a deeply personal one. You are choosing who gets to be in the room with you during one of the most vulnerable hours of your year.
Dr. Sutera is one of the only multidisciplinary dentists in Greater Boston board certified in IV sedation by the Massachusetts Dental Board. He has trained at NYU, Pankey, and the GIDE Institute. He has treated hundreds of sedation cases. He has been featured in national publications, on radio, and on television.
But the most important thing about Dr. Sutera, in the context of this page, is the way he begins each first visit: seated upright, no instruments out, asking what brought you here and what you are hoping for.
Full credentials below →Sedation dentistry exists on a spectrum. Not every anxious patient needs IV sedation. Not every fearful patient wants to feel "out of it." And no one should feel pushed toward the deepest option just because they finally worked up the nerve to call.
We start with a different question:
The goal is not maximum sedation.
The goal is completed care, with the least intervention that genuinely helps.
A small mask over your nose. A few quiet breaths. Within two to five minutes, a light floating awareness that softens the visit without taking you away from it. You stay present. You can talk with us throughout. You drive yourself home.
For many patients, nitrous is the first step back to dental care after years away. It's the gentlest form of sedation we offer, and for some patients, it's the only one they'll ever need.
This is often the first step for someone who wants to stay awake, stay aware, and still not white-knuckle the appointment. Nitrous works well across multiple shorter visits.
Taken about an hour before your appointment, oral sedation lets you arrive already settled. You are awake, but disconnected. Present enough to respond, distant enough that most patients remember very little of what happened. An adult escort drives you to and from the visit.
For patients who want more than nitrous but find IV sedation feels like too much, oral sedation is often the right middle path. Particularly common for patients with needle phobia.
This is often the bridge for someone who wants to arrive already settled instead of spending the whole morning bracing.
Most patients describe it as drifting. The appointment feels distant, brief, or difficult to recall afterward. For patients whose fear has delayed care for years, IV sedation can make longer or more complex treatment feel possible.
Medication is delivered through a small IV in your arm. Levels are adjusted continuously throughout your visit. You remain breathing on your own. You are monitored every minute with pulse oximetry and capnography. You are not unconscious, but you are not present in the way that has frightened you before.
Dr. Sutera is one of the only multidisciplinary dentists in the Boston area board certified in IV sedation.
This is often the path for someone who has years of unfinished dental care and needs the visit to feel distant enough to finally complete it. Many patients consolidate most of their treatment into one or two longer IV sedation visits.
The unknown is most of the friction. When you know what is going to happen, the body settles.
The front desk will ask you a handful of things when you call. Here they are in advance, so you are not put on the spot.
Sedation pricing depends on the type and the length of the procedure. Below is what you can expect.
The decision to be sedated by a particular dentist is a clinical and a personal one. Below is what Dr. Sutera brings to that decision.
If you have read this far and you are not ready to call yet, that is fine. The six-question assessment helps us understand what kind of support your body may need, before we ever ask you to sit in the chair. Most patients use it as a quiet first step.
Start with Six Quiet QuestionsYou only have to be ready for the first conversation. Take the two-minute match assessment, request a consultation, or call us directly. Pick whichever feels least like a leap today.