An important feature of local anesthesia is that it produces loss of sensation without inducing a loss of consciousness. The main goal of local anesthesia in dentistry is the management of pain. Basically any time a procedure is likely to be painful, a dentist will offer local anesthesia. This includes crown fitting, root canal procedure, tooth reshaping, tooth realignment as well as minor oral surgeries and gum surgeries including stiches
Numbing only the selected part of the mouth where the dentist is working allows the patient to remain alert but comfortable. T5he application of local anesthesia in dentistry often leaves puffy and numb for a few hours after administration, but does not impair the patients clarity of thought or overall sense of well being.
What are the complications of local anesthesia in dentistry?
Local complications:-
- Needle breakage
- Paraesthesia or persistent anesthesia-sometimes can last for more than a few hours. At times it may persist for days, weeks or months
- Facial nerve paralysis
- Trismus-Trismus is the prolonged titanic spasm of the jaw muscles by which the normal opening of the mouth is restricted
- Soft tissue injury-more frequent in children
- Hematoma-a localized swelling filled with blood can occur while accidentally nicking a blood vessel. It can result in pain or trismus
- Pain on injection
- Burning on injection
- Infection
- Edema
- Sloughing of tissue
- Post anesthetic intraoral lesions
Systemic complications:-
- Cardiovascular system-increased blood pressure, bradycardia
- Central nervous system-depression of CNS, respiratory arrest
- Nausea, vomiting
- Hypersensitivity/allergy
- Skin rashes
- Edema
- Utricaria
- Diarrhea
- Abdominal cramps
- unconsciousness
