For more intensive work that needs to be done on a mouth, a dentist or periodontist in Long Island may advise a patient that some pain and discomfort will be unavoidable for the procedure. In such cases, the most common solution to this is to apply anesthesia to the patient so as not to experience any of the pain. In the past, there were only two ways to achieve this; local and general anesthetic.
Total & Specific Pain Killing
General anesthetic was, in the past, largely reserved for much more elaborate procedures, such as general surgery in hospitals, or more elaborate dental surgery, such as removing many wisdom teeth in one go. General anesthetic allowed a periodontist in Long Island to spare the patient any pain by simply knocking the patient out. The insertion of a drip feed put the patient to sleep so he or she wasn’t conscious at all for the procedure, and only woke up when it was over.
Local anesthetic, on the other hand, was more specific. Rather than just rendering a patient unconscious, the anesthetic was injected directly into the part of the body that was going to be subjected to surgery. In other words, a patient would have a needle filled with anesthetic injected into the mouth somewhere. This would numb only the mouth, allowing the patient to remain awake and aware—while not experiencing any pain—as the dental expert did the required work.
Both of these techniques have their pros and cons. General anesthetic made time pass quickly for the patient, but required fasting the night before to keep the stomach clear. Local anesthetic required less preparation, but also left the patient’s mouth feeling numb and out of control after the work was complete.
Now, however, a periodontist in Long Island and other dental experts have new technology to help patients, and it is called the Single Tooth Anesthesia technique.
How STA Works
The STA technique is incredibly precise without being invasive. No needles are involved here at all, as they are with both drip-feed IV sedation, and traditional local anesthetics administered by a needle injected into the mouth. Instead, the STA technique uses a “wand” to drip a very precise amount of anesthetic directly onto the ligaments of the gum, which then absorbs the anesthetic directly into nerves and blood stream.
The result of this technique means that a periodontist in Long Island or other dental expert actually has much more precise control over how much anesthetic is required, and how long it lasts. Best of all, this also means that STA is much more local than even local anesthetic! Rather than having an entire mouth feel numb, so that chewing and speaking don’t feel right until the anesthetic wears off, only the precise area that is being worked on gets cut off from pain. No more numb lips, numb tongue or any of the inconveniences that come with them! So if you’re interested, ask your dental expert about single tooth anesthesia if you need some extensive dental work done.
