Acupuncture may calm dental fears

Help may be at hand for people who are terrified of going to the dentist. Researchers have found that acupuncture can help calm down the most anxious of dental patients.

Around one in 20 of us suffer from feelings of extreme fear and anxiety brought on by just thinking about visiting a dentist, and some are put off going altogether, a condition known as odontophobia.

Past studies have also shown that up to a third of patients have moderate anxiety at the thought of dental treatment.

However, in a small study, published in the journal Acupuncture in Medicine, dentists from eight dental practices used acupuncture to treat 16 men and four women to treat anxious patients.

All of the patients were in their 40s and had suffered from dental anxiety and fear for between two and 30 years.

The degree of anxiety experienced by the patients was assessed before and after treatment using a questionnaire called the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI).

Each of the patients was described as being moderately or extremely anxious about going to the dentist.

Many of them had already tried to conquer their fear of dentists using sedatives, relaxation techniques and hypnosis.

The acupuncture treatment involved having needles inserted at two specific acupuncture points - GV20 and EX6 - on the top of the head for five minutes before the dental check up.

The acupuncture was carried out by the dentists themselves, who were all members of the British Dental Acupuncture Society.

After treatment, the average BAI score of 26.5 fell to 11.5, and all 20 patients were able to undergo their planned dental work. Previously only six of the patients had managed this - and then only partially and after a great deal of effort on the part of both dentist and patient.

Although the findings were promising, the researchers said further larger studies are needed to confirm their initial results, but said acupuncture “may offer a simple and inexpensive method of treatment.”

This article was published on Tue 30 March 2010