What to Expect After Local Anaesthetic at Your Dentist
December 28, 2019
To make the dental procedures as comfortable as possible we may place local anaesthetic (an injection) beside your tooth. You will have a numb lip, tooth, gums and sometimes tongue for about three hours. It is important not to bite, burn or hurt your lip or tongue while it is asleep.
It is not uncommon to have some discomfort around the injection site. In the lower jaw the anaesthetic is placed deeper and there is sometimes bruising in the area. When the jaw is opened, the previously relaxed muscles are stretched flat against each other. Any bruising is squashed between the muscles and may be sore. This will usually improve within 2 weeks.
In very rare cases, the numbness may last longer. If you have numbness lasting longer than 12 hours, or if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
There are situations where pain relief is needed, such as travelling in to see us with a sore tooth, or healing an infected or damaged tooth. We give you some guidelines on how best to manage dental pain.
A typical dental hygienist appointment will involve ‘debridement and prophylaxis’, the removal of a plaque and calculus from the surfaces of your teeth. We explain what may happen after this procedure.
We explain what to expect after a Root Canal treatment - how to optimise the success of the treatment and avoid possible complications.