Today I went to the dentist to get a crown replaced. He injected me and waited for the anesthesia to take effect. It really didn’t.
Ultimately, he gave me four injections over an hour, using carbocaine and xylocaine. While half of my tongue became numb, the best I achieved for the rest was that tingly feeling. He finally elected to not do the work today - I’ll go back next week.
So, how did this happen?
He’s numbed me successfully many times before with a lot less of the same stuff. He said this happens in his practice about twice a year.
While it wouldn’t apply in this case, an interesting side note to our conversation was his revelation that people who’ve built up a tolerance to cocaine are quick to metabolize all the other -caine drugs. I suppose there might be some potential effect from an anti-drug message along the lines of, “If you’re going to do cocaine, you’d better never need a filling.”
As stated, though, that wouldn’t be the case here. It’s been over a year since he last injected me, successfully, with a quarter of what he gave me today. I doubt I’ve built a tolerance for carbocaine and xylocaine. Just bad shootin’ on his part?
BTW, I consider him a good dentist, and have been going to him for several years.
They don’t just squirt that stuff in any old way, there are particular nerves that they’re gunning for, I believe. I guess that if you do about 750 of those a year that a couple are bound to miss the target.
I will now step aside while a dentist comes to answer.
this has happened many times for me. one visit i had 5 injections which numbed me so bad that i couldnt feel a large portion of my face and drooled uncontrolably, however, i sitll had to sit through 40 minutes of very painful drilling. this has happened 4+ times to me, the dentist never has any idea why.
also, i have never done drugs so the “-caine” possibility is eliminated for me.
According to my dentist, there is a channel of sorts (for lack of a better term; we’re still waiting for a real dentist to check in) in the lower jaw that he once had a hard time finding on me.
Getting the anesthectic into this channel facillitates access to the root nerves. He finally got it with me, but after so many tries, I was drooling all over myself on the drive home.
IANAD, either, but my excellent dentist has great difficulty numbing my lower jaw. My nerve channels there are apparently rather deep. It’s like anything else – YMMV.
It happened to me once during a root planing procedure. I think it was the lower jaw for me, too. In that case they are messing about will all the teeth and there were one or two in the lower back that just wouldn’t go to sleep.