Practical Ways to Deal with Anesthesia After a Dental Procedure
A visit to your local dentist for a routine root canal, filling or any other type of dental procedure will likely require the use of a local anesthetic to help numb and soothe the area. The primary why an anesthetic is administered during dental-related treatments is to manage pain. In general, anesthetics involve the use of light anesthesia to help numb the patient’s tooth for 1-2 hours. But after this period, patients usually continue to experience the effects of anesthesia on their tongues, lips as well as faces for at least three-five hours. And this implies that if you are someone looking to report to work, you might find it tough to resume work right after your treatment because of the irritation caused by the anesthesia. Thankfully, there are a few things you can do to help reduce the effect of anesthesia, including:
- Manage your skin: If you don’t experience any swelling after your treatment, you can potentially minimize the impact of the anesthesia by gently massaging your skin. It is highly recommended that you a warm compress to massage the area. This will help boost the blood flow to the area in question. However, even as you conduct the massage, don’t forget to thoroughly wash your hands both before and after the massage session.
- Ask for a reversal injection, if possible: If you can’t tolerate the anesthesia and you are not also scared of injections, you can ask your dentist to administer you with a reversal injection. Just as the name implies, a reversal injection will minimize the effect of anesthesia much quicker. To elaborate more, if the anesthesia usually takes two hours to wear off, a reversal injection will help lower the effect of the anesthesia by at least an hour.
- Take a short nap: while this might not seem like an effective remedy, it does actually help reduce the effect of anesthesia. A short nap will not only help divert your mind from the feeling of pain and discomfort but will also ensure the sensation wears off before you wake up again.
- Stay calm as possible: Bearing in mind that anesthetic tends to react differently on different people and taking into consideration the fact that every dental treatment requires a different anesthetic dosage, no one is able to precisely predict how long the anesthetic will last in a particular individual’s system. Your body’s ability to metabolize anesthesia largely depends on a number of factors, including your height and weight. As a result, it’s sometimes better to remain calm and allow the anesthesia to cool down on its own.
- Engage in some physical activity: If you are able to take part in some light physical activity, and your dentist supports this, go ahead and do so. Walking or riding a bike can help minimize the intensity of your numbness. By engaging in some form of physical activity, blood flow across your entire body is highly enhanced, helping transport the anesthesia away from the affected area to other areas of your body, making you feel somehow better.
The bottom line:
It is pretty common for those administered with anesthesia to experience some numbness for a couple of hours. But if the effect of your anesthetic treatment fails to go down nearly five hours after treatment, you should act very fast and contact your dentist because extended numbness can be a sign of abscess as well as nerve damage.
For more information regarding your dental health, please give Dr. Apsey of Smile Brightly Dental a call today! We are located in Warren, MI and we can be reached at 586-573-7700!