Dental anesthesia offers patients both young and old options for a pain-free, anxiety-free experience. That means, you no longer need to postpone those annual visits to the dentist out of fear. Those professionals are there to help your oral care be all that it can be, and anesthesia helps them to do just that while you relax and take a seat.  What do you think of when it comes to annual dental appointment? Are you excited? Nervous? Filled with dread? Depending on the person, your feelings could be vastly different from your neighbor. The Dental Organization for Conscious Sedation (DOCS) estimates that 30% of adults avoid the dentist due to fear, and an estimated 75 million people living in the United States skip the dentist for that reason alone. Going to the dentist does not have to be a nerve-racking experience, especially with the technology and medicine available in modern times. Once such technological advance is dental anesthesia, and it is used extensively in the world of dentistry.

Local Anesthesia

Dental anesthesia is given prior to a dental procedure to dull pain or sedate a nervous or anxious patient. The most common form used for dental procedures is local anesthesia. This type of dental anesthesia is delivered right to the spot of treatment and dulls pain in all or part of the mouth but does NOT cause the patient to go to sleep. For those who have gone to the dentist before, this could be in the form of a numbing gel put on the gums of your teeth followed by a small injection of numbing medicine. That gel is what is known as a topical anesthetic used to numb an area of the mouth in preparation of a second numbing injection. Both of these forms of anesthetic ensure the patient feels no pain during their appointment. The gel helps you to feel little (if anything) of the second injection even going in.

Local anesthesia wears off anywhere between 30 minutes to 4 hours after dental work is completed and is often used when a patient is getting a filling or a root canal. Your dentist will decide the amount of anesthesia needed depending on what type of oral care you are receiving and the procedure itself. That will determine how long it takes the medicine to wear off.

Other Types of Anesthesia

• Oral sedatives. Medicine taken orally before a procedure. Sedation dentistry mainly uses medicine that is taken by mouth or dissolved on or under the tongue.
• Oral injections. Typically the shot of numbing medicine given to a specific area of the mouth after a topical anesthetic gel has been used. These injections can be put directly into the hard palate of the mouth, to the pulp of the tooth, or other parts of the gum depending on what tooth the dentist will be working on. No need to fret though, as a topical gel has been given to numb the area.
• Nerve block. Local anesthetic applied to a specific region of the mouth, allowing the entire section to be numb or blocked to pain.
• Infiltration. These injections are usually used for periodontal surgeries, extractions, grafting, implant placements and even tooth restoration procedures.

Call for a Dental Anesthesia Consultation

These methods of anesthesia are especially for you and will make your dental experience so much easier. All you need to do is meet with your dental care provider and decide on what anesthesia plan is right for you when it comes to having routine check ups, cavities filled, root canals, or extensive oral work done. We want your experience and relationship with oral care to be a positive one. Dental anesthesia offers you a pain-free experience to decrease your anxiety, so look into it today! Call us today at (303) 731-7755 to make an appointment.