A few years ago, Amy Benway wouldn't have willingly sat in a dentist's chair.
 
"I was terrified. I didn't go to a dentist for a long, long time," says Benway.
 
But after an abscessed tooth forced the issue, Amy found a dentist who could perform the procedure using IV sedation.
 
"When I woke up, after he had given me the IV, the nitrous oxide, and I woke up, I thought he hadn't started yet," says Benway.
 
Amy's sedation experience, that feeling of just shutting your eyes and waking up, is common. But patients aren't actually asleep.
 
"It can put you in a state where you don't remember exactly what's going on, you're not conscious of what's going on. And so when you think back on your procedure, you may think you were asleep, but actually, you were awake," says Dentist Dr. Todd Thierer.
 
Dr. Thierer says sedation dentistry uses a variety of medications to relax patients.
 
"Versed, which is a shorter acting version of Valium. And sometimes they use a narcotic called Fentanyl," says Thierer.
 
Though shorter-acting, the medicines are still powerful. That means you can't stay 'under' for too long.
 
"I would say for people who are pretty severely anxious, 90-minutes to two hours is probably the time limit," says Thierer.
 
Another thing to consider, IV is easier to control than oral meds.
 
"So if people are getting too deep, I can use the reversal agent and bring people out of it. Those agents, that can't be done if you give something by mouth," says Thierer.
 
There are many dentists who offer some form of sedation dentistry. Don't forget to and ask how they sedate patients.