Dentist Beware of numbness in case of allergies

Dentist treatment: Beware of numbness in allergies and medication

26/01/2012

Patients should inform their dentist about allergies, pre-existing conditions and medications before stunning them. These could make the anesthetic ineffective or have other unwanted side effects.

Dentist should interview patients thoroughly
Before placing an anesthetic injection, dentists should thoroughly check whether patients have allergies or illnesses. This could be crucial for choosing an alternative narcotic drug or procedure. The same applies to drugs that patients have previously taken. The initiative „proDente“ points out that although allergic reactions to an active substance in locally administered anesthetics are very rare, they nevertheless occur. Allergy sufferers may be sensitive to sulfide, which acts as a stabilizer in some solutions. If the dentist is aware of the allergy, he could use an alternative remedy, according to the initiative.

For example, if a patient suffers from heart disease, a drug containing adrenaline is not conducive because adrenaline causes the blood vessels to constrict. Cardiac arrhythmias and sudden palpitations may be among the undesirable consequences, proDente reports. The initiative then indicates that hypertension, elevated intraocular pressure, diabetes or the use of beta-blockers and blood-thinning drugs are also precarious in this regard.

In the case of pregnancy, only the mandatory treatments should be performed. This applies in particular to the first three months of pregnancy, according to the experts. Benefit and risk must be weighed against each other. Often the dentist can then use the often locally used active ingredient Articain and add small amounts of adrenaline.

Avoid food and hot drinks until numbness is gone
Dentist Joachim Hoffmann from proDente told the news agency „dpa“ indicates that anesthesia must not be noticeable before eating or taking hot drinks, so that there is no risk of injury to the patient. This sometimes means forfeiting food for a few hours.

If the anesthetic is still effective, patients would bite easily on the numbed lip or cheek without feeling it. Hot drinks could cause burns in the mouth and throat, Hoffmann warns. Patients may ask their dentist how long an anesthetic is effective. This depends on the severity of the dental treatment.

Different methods of stunning
The dentist will decide, depending on the planned treatment, which anesthetic is used. According to experts, there are basically a variety of anesthetic procedures to choose from. For example, in infiltration anesthesia an anesthetic is injected directly into the cavity of the root of the tooth under the mucosa. As a result, one to two teeth are anesthetized after about one to three minutes. If molars are to be treated, a narcotic is injected near the lower jaw, reported "proDente". Through this procedure, the entire nerve conduction path is stunned on one half of the jaw. Likewise, a numbness in the lower lip and the corresponding tongue half could occur. (Ag)

Image: Michael Horn