Modern dentistry provides patients with a large number of services for the correction of dental defects. However, not all procedures can be considered painless. That is why, during most of them, application anesthesia is used.
What is a procedure?
It consists in the effect of special painkillers on the terminal nerve endings of a tooth without using a syringe. Naturally, different drugs provide different effects. Anesthesia is superficial. The drug is applied to the desired area in the form of a gel, ointment or spray.
It should be noted that application anesthesia is not always allowed. Therefore, the type of anesthesia should be chosen by the doctor, depending on the operation to be performed, as well as on the characteristics of your body.
Indications for use
Local application anesthesia is usually done in such cases:
- In the treatment of caries.
- To reduce pain sensitivity in the area where you need to make an injection.
- So that you can safely remove the loose tooth.
- To eliminate tartar.
- In order to restore the natural shape of the crown.
- To prevent the action of the gag reflex during the operation to remove the impression from the dentition.
Advantages and disadvantages of the procedure
Application anesthesia has several advantages:
- High efficiency action.
- Safety for the patient.
- Lack of discomfort during pain relief. The fact is that the drugs are applied with a cotton swab, so this does not cause any pain.
However, there are also disadvantages. For example, the duration of most drugs is limited to 30 minutes, and the doctor may not have time to do everything necessary for this time period. Despite the safety of the use of drugs, they still penetrate the systemic circulation and can cause side effects. Another disadvantage of using such anesthesia is the inability to control the dosage of drugs that are made in the form of an aerosol.
Contraindications and side effects
Before applying anesthesia, it is imperative to study all the contraindications that make it impossible to use this method of pain relief. Among them are the following:
- Individual intolerance to the drug or its components.
- The occurrence of an allergic reaction.
- Acute forms of heart and vascular disease, as well as a recent heart attack or stroke.
- Diabetes.
- Disruption of the endocrine system.
The most important side effect of this type of pain relief is allergies. If the drugs used are dosed correctly, complications can be avoided. Please note that you can not use such drugs at home. The presented type of anesthesia can be replaced. There are other ways to administer drugs.
Application and infiltration anesthesia are two types of local anesthesia. Moreover, the second of them is used in cases where it is impossible to use the first. Infiltration anesthesia is characterized in that it is administered by injection.
Types of application anesthesia
Before carrying out anesthesia, it is necessary to understand how it will be produced. Most often it is classified by the mechanism of action. You can divide anesthesia into four groups:
- Moxibustion. For its implementation, nitric acid, carbolic acid, a solution of silver nitrate and other substances are used. However, this method is not always used, as it can severely damage tissues and pulp.
- Dehydration. In this case, special tools are used that can reduce the sensitivity of tissues to pain by reducing the amount of fluid in them.
- Means of physiological action. These include aspirin paste, strontium paste and other substances. After the tool is applied to the dental tissue, it blocks the pain on the receptors of the dentinal tubules. The therapeutic effect in this case is very pronounced.
- Local anesthetic. It is able to block the conductivity of peripheral nerve endings. Use such a substance should be for the treatment of hard tooth tissues.
What drugs are used?
If you need anesthesia, the doctor should choose the drugs for it. There are a lot of them. The most common are the following:
- Dikain (Tetrakain). This product can be sold in the form of ointments, solution or special powder. It is rarely used, since it has a high degree of toxicity. For dental treatment in children, it is better not to use it.
- "Lidocaine". This is the most common drug that is used in pediatric and adult dentistry. It can also be purchased in the form of ointment and gel. There is a liquid solution of this drug.
- "Pyromecain". The medicine provides a good analgesic effect. It is produced in ampoules or in the form of an ointment.
- "Benzocaine". The presented drug is sold in the form of an oil or glycerin solution.
- Propolis alcohol solution. This substance is also able to eliminate pain.
Features of the procedure
So, before using a drug, such as gel, for application anesthesia, you need to make sure that the patient does not have an allergic reaction to it.
You can apply drugs with a cotton swab. In this case, the substance is either rubbed into the mucous membrane of the mouth, or simply applied to a specific area. If it was not possible to achieve the analgesic effect the first time, then the procedure can be repeated. During anesthesia, it must be taken into account that each tooth differs from the other in the degree of pain perception. Therefore, in each case, a different dosage of the drug can be used.
If the doctor decided to use an aerosol, then it is applied to the desired area by spraying. It should be borne in mind that the drug will fall into other parts of the oral mucosa. This can be extremely undesirable.
Some recommendations
If you need to undergo a dental treatment using anesthetics, then you should not drink alcohol on the eve of your visit to the doctor. They can reduce the analgesic effect.
If you have fear at the mere thought of visiting a doctor, then at night you can take mild herbal sedatives. In the case of the presence of infectious or inflammatory diseases in the body, the treatment procedure should be postponed.
Women should not go to the dentist during menstruation. This period is accompanied by increased excitability of the nervous system, as well as susceptibility to certain drugs becomes stronger. In this case, severe bleeding may occur.
In any case, application anesthesia in dentistry (the drugs we have already reviewed) is very common. But only a qualified doctor can use it. Only he is able to assess the patient’s condition, take into account the characteristics of the patient’s body and determine the dosage of the drug. Be healthy!