According to research conducted by K B Hill et al. in 2009, approximately 36% of the population have some form of dental anxiety or fear with an additional 12% experiencing extreme dental fear. This dental fear happens for a variety of reasons, according to research conducted in 2014:
Exogenous factors (Factors present and active in an individual but that originated outside of the individual), including but not limited to:
Endogenous factors (factors present and active in an individual that originated from within the individual), including but not limited to:
This is all very interesting but doesn’t help anyone that struggles with a fear of the dentist, local anaesthesia and particularly dentist needles. So, what can we do to help? This blog post will answer this and other questions about dental injections and tooth numbing.
This is a ubiquitous question but often has a double meaning, it could either mean ‘what type of drug does a dentist use for anaesthesia in dental work’, or it could be ‘how is that drug administered?’ – let’s look at both.
Typically Lidocaine is used for dental injections, and it works by temporarily blocking the pathway of pain signals along the nerves. It also has the added benefit of decreasing bleeding in the operative site. Lidocaine typically works within around 4 min and last for approximately half an hour to 3 hours.
Typically a dental injection is administered using a very fine needle, modern needles are tiny and therefore cause very little pain or discomfort. The real key to making this type of dental injection comfortable is in the injection technique used by the dentist.
However, there are new and modern ways to administer a dental injection.
The Wand helps nervous patients by using a computer-controlled delivery mechanism that prevents the classic bee sting type pain associated with traditional injections. It uses a small handpiece which looks very much like a pen, it then gives a controlled supply of the anaesthetic drug in a very slow comfortable manner below your pain threshold, preventing pressure building up which often is the cause of pain and discomfort.
The low pressure and slow rate of delivery provide improved anaesthesia, and also ensures that a small drop of the anaesthetic drug is always in front of the needle offering pain relief before the needle goes in further.
You will typically find that the tooth that is being treated will be numb for approximately 1-2 hours, if your lips or tongue have gone numb also this may last for up to 5 hours. Individual people are affected slightly differently by the anaesthetic given depending upon their heart rate and metabolic rate.
Modern dental local anaesthesia is extremely safe; however there are certain times when you may experience one or more of the following side effects:
Very occasionally the injection needle could damage and nerve, this can lead to an extended period of numbing, possibly for several weeks or months. However, the good news is that this it usually repairs over time and does not persist in the long-term.
Because a dental anaesthetic is likely to affect your lips as well as your teeth this can make wheelchairs operated by a mouthpiece challenging to control, this is due to the inability to create a proper seal around the mouthpiece. If you are likely to be affected by this, please ensure you have alternate wheelchair operating methods or someone with you to be of assistance.
It is not unusual to have some anxiety about visiting the dentist or to have a fear of dentist needles; however it is more uncommon for dental patients to have extreme anxiety or even dental phobia.
Here is our advice:
What is important to know is that being scared of the dentist is a learned behaviour. We aren’t born being afraid of the dentist. This can be very empowering. If it is a learned behaviour, then another behaviour can also be learned.
People tell us the reason they are scared of the dentist is:
Because being scared of the dentist is learnt, if one has a series of positive experiences, taking small steps at a time, it is possible to learn a new behaviour without the anxiety, fear or being scared.