The anesthesia It is essential today in dentistry to be able to perform a treatment without any type of pain.
Pain can be eliminated directly (eliminating the cause) or indirectly (blocking the transmission of painful stimuli). In dental practice, the second is of interest, but that this elimination is reversible and that it remains for the duration of the dental treatment.
In the daily practice of dentistry, a high percentage of clinical and surgical procedures require anesthesia to be able to perform them successfully. For this reason, it makes local anesthetics the most widely used drugs.
How do you manage to control pain?
There are several ways in which pain can be controlled. One of them is the pharmacological analgesia. Pain is controlled with the use of drugs called analgesics. Another typology is the crazy anesthesiaregional. It consists in the abolition of painful, thermal, etc. sensitivity. of a certain area of the body. The sedation it is another way to control pain. The last one focuses on the general anesthesia in which a total loss of consciousness is obtained.
The route that is most commonly performed in the dental clinic is locoregional anesthesia. Although the others are also used on special occasions.
Locoregional anesthesia is divided into:
- Local anesthesia. The action of the drug is done at peripheral levels, either on the receptors themselves or on the smaller terminal branches.
- Regional anesthesia. The desensitized area corresponds to the territory of innervation of a nerve or of some important branch (such as anesthesia of the lower dental nerve).
Types of anesthesia in dentistry
- Topical anesthesia. It consists of the direct application of the local anesthetic on the area to be anesthetized.
- Infiltrative anesthesia. The local anesthetic is injected around the nerve endings. This can be classified, according to the area where it is injected, into:
- Mucous membrane. Equivalent to topical anesthesia.
- Submucosa. It is the most superficial anesthesia that can be achieved by puncture. The most used in dentistry when referring colloquially to infiltrative anesthesia.
- Subperiosteal. It is deposited near the bone, it is very painful, so it is little used.
- Intraosseous. It is deposited in the maxillary bone.
- Intraligamentosa. The local anesthetic is injected into the periodontal space.
- Intrapulpar. It is deposited inside the pulp chamber (in the pulp), it has to be exposed.
- Truncal anesthesia or blocking. The injection of the local anesthetic is done away from the nerve endings, in a nerve trunk. The anesthetic effect is superior to infiltrative techniques.
