Why is my dental work taking so long?

'Slow down, you move too fast. You've got to make the morning last'.

Songwriter, Paul Simon, wrote these words a long time ago but they sound very appropriate when applied to dentistry. Simply put, and with few exceptions, dental work takes time. Why do we need so much patience to get dental work done?

There are two reasons dental work takes so long:

• For dental work to be done properly, many procedures take more than one visit.  The reasons differ depending on the procedure.

  Sometimes a laboratory must be involved. Sometimes a procedure done over several visits will be less painful for the patient. Sometimes a patient is not capable of a very long single-visit procedure.

• We can't rush the body when it is healing. In other words, the body heals at its own pace and many procedures depend on proper healing for the work to be successful.

Plan ahead

When you schedule a consultation with the dentist begin the discussion by asking how long the work will take. Also ask if there are other treatment options that won’t take so long and then you can decide what is best for you.

It is important to plan well. Do you have a wedding coming up? Do you have to travel soon? Try from the very beginning to factor these plans into your dental work and discuss your plans with the dentist. There are many times I started a procedure only to hear from the patient, ‘I have to leave next week’, even though the work could never be done that fast. Try to avoid such a situation.