Cumbrian dentist Jos Stevenson has one simple piece of advice for dentists who might be considering Vibraject: “Get it, you won’t regret it.”
Jos recalls the first day she used Vibraject. She had met the UK distributor Murray Hawkins at The Dentistry Show. “I was there looking at ideas to equip a new surgery. I hadn’t gone with any idea or list of sundries, but Murray described this thing to me and I just thought it sounded great and it was a low enough cost item to give it a try. As soon as it arrived I used it on the very next patient who walked in the door. After I had used the Vibraject, the patient asked me: ‘When do you give me the injection?’ I have used it on virtually every single patient since then. I think it’s fantastic.”
Vibraject is a small device, similar to a TENS machine, which attaches to a normal syringe. Jos is the principal of a new practice based in Maryport, Cumbria. She says that being private in a socio-economically deprived town shouldn’t work, but it does. Why? One of the most compelling reasons is the reputation she is building as a gentle clinician.
Jos believes that phobia and anxiety are the biggest problems that dentists face. “True needle phobics are an enormous strain on the dentist, very difficult to treat. I see several every week. We have a needle phobic young lady who can’t smile because her teeth are turning black and rotting away through fear of the dentist. We were getting nowhere with her. She’s so terrified that she can’t even speak when she comes in - my heart goes out to her. But with Vibraject we’re getting there, slowly but surely. When saying to a phobic patient ‘this is new’ they just begin to feel a little more comfortable and they understand that you are doing your absolute best for them.”
In addition to Vibraject, she uses Ultradent bubble gum gel which she says is a lot more effective than some of the other gels. “The principle is to offer someone a choice - and to make that a slightly fun choice.”
As for treating children, she says Vibraject is absolutely amazing. “I still get tearful children but I get far fewer. I follow Murray’s DVD on the children - I try to avoid treating them on the first appointment, but explain to them what’s going to happen. I show them the cartridge and explain that this is the special liquid that will put their tooth to sleep and I’m going to ‘buzz’ it into their gum. The first young child I saw was a junior school child who had an ID block. He didn’t even murmur. I think that was when Vibraject sold itself to me because giving an ID block to a young child is a horrible injection. The child really didn’t notice - and mum nearly fell off her chair as she’d been expecting an upset child. From a marketing point of view I can’t get over the number of times I hear: ‘it wasn’t like that at our last dentist!’ That’s fabulous.”