Patients will often avoid necessary procedures such as cavity extractions because they are concerned that these procedures are painful. But this does not have to necessarily be the case. Some procedures are entirely painless and other procedures only lead to minimal pain. 

Numbing The Pain

Before the cavity extraction,  your dentist will numb your tooth. Then, your dentist will test to determine if you feel any pain. This is a result of the numbing agent not numbing all of the area adequately. Your dentist will ask you questions to determine if you have been adequately numbed. He or she will also test your gum tissue.

While your dentist is performing the extraction, you may find it difficult to communicate orally.  Therefore, you should setup a signal you can send that will indicate you are experiencing pain. Then, your dentist can make the necessary adjustments to reduce the pain you are experiencing on the unlikely chance that it is severe.

Pain You Might Experience

You may feel a pinch as your dentist injects a needle into the site of the operation to inject a numbing agent. As your dentist applies pressure to rock the tooth back and forth and remove it, you will experience pressure. To manage pain, your dentist may inject the site of the pain again with the numbing agent. These follow-up injections will likely produce no pain. 

If you have a hot tooth, you are likely to already be in pain. Your dentist may find it difficult to numb very sensitive lower molars. However, there are additional methods that your dentist can use in addition to the initial injection to numb the pain. There is a whole list of solutions and your dentist will continue down the list until he or she has eliminated the pain.

Don't Confuse Pressure With Pain

You will likely experience pressure because the agents that are effective at numbing nerves associated with pain are not effective at numbing nerves associated with pressure. Patients will sometimes not expect the pressure they will experience and misinterpret the pressure as being pain. Actual pain has a sharpness that pressure does not. Also, as patients feel an increasing amount of pressure, they expect to experience pain when they actually do not.

Many dentists will warn patients that they will feel pressure. This is to avoid patients reporting pressure as pain, which would lead to the dentist administering more anesthetics than necessary.

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