General dentistry
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Acetaminophen/hydrocodone is a common non-opioid/opioid analgesic indicated for the treatment of moderate to severe pain. The following report depicts a unique case involving a 57-year-old woman with a persistent, painful oral ulcer that was unresponsive to standard treatments. The ulcer was resolved when the patient discontinued acetaminophen/hydrocodone use. The cause of the ulcer is unclear but it was speculated to result from a systemic hypersensitivity reaction to acetaminophen/hydrocodone.
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Fear of dentistry is a pervasive and persistent phenomenon that contributes to avoidance of dental care and results in a substantial public health problem. While the use of incremental enteral sedation has increased, there is a paucity of published evidence to evaluate its safety. This study sought to assess the safety of individualized dosing of enteral sedation for adults in the dental outpatient setting. ⋯ Risk of having an event was not related to practice factors (that is, the time spent practicing incremental enteral sedation, the percentage of the practice devoted to practicing incremental enteral sedation, the number of cases performed, or the type of monitoring) or training factors. This survey represents the largest number of subjects reported in the literature concerning enteral sedation. These observations provide evidence for the safety of enteral sedation when these drugs and combinations are administered by properly-trained dentists who monitor patients with pulse oximetry, BP measurement, and direct observation.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Size doesn't matter: needle gauge and injection pain.
Many dentists prefer using smaller gauge (27- or 30-gauge) needles for anesthesia injection, believing that needles with a smaller diameter result in less injection pain than wider diameter needles. For this study, three dentists in a general practice administered 930 injections to 810 adult patients using 25- and 27-gauge needles for mandibular inferior alveolar block injections and 25-, 27-, and 30-gauge needles for maxillary buccal infiltration or palatal injections. ⋯ There was no statistically significant difference in perceived injection pain based on needle gauge when analyzed for injection location (mandibular, maxillary posterior, maxillary anterior, and palatal), injection side, patient gender, treating dentist, or overall. These results indicate that when it comes to injection pain and needle gauge, size does not matter.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Injection pain of prilocaine plain, mepivacaine plain, articaine with epinephrine, and lidocaine with epinephrine.
In a double-blind study design, 1,391 consecutive patients in a general dental practice received one of four different local anesthetics (articaine with epinephrine, lidocaine with epinephrine, mepivacaine plain, or prilocaine plain) via a maxillary buccal infiltration, palatal infiltration, or inferior alveolar block injection. The anesthetics were administered under clinical conditions by one of two dentists. ⋯ The pain response was analyzed according to the dentist administering the injection, the location of injection, the patient's gender, and the type of anesthetic administered. Injection of prilocaine plain produced significantly lower pain scores than lidocaine with epinephrine, mepivacaine plain, or articaine with epinephrine.
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This article examines the prescribing practices for peripherally acting and centrally acting analgesics, corticosteroids, and antibiotics following third molar extraction. A nationwide survey involving the prescribing patterns of a random national sample of 850 practicing oral surgeons was performed in 2004. Ibuprofen was the peripherally acting analgesic respondents used most frequently in the previous month, selected by 73.5% of the respondents. ⋯ Recommendations for oral analgesics to manage postoperative pain relied on the peripherally acting analgesic ibuprofen or the centrally acting analgesic combination formulation hydrocodone with acetaminophen. Routine instructions to use centrally acting analgesics "as needed for pain" suggest that centrally acting analgesics are offered to manage pain that postoperative peripherally acting analgesics and intraoperative long-acting local anesthetics do not control adequately. The frequency with which oral and maxillofacial surgeons administered antibiotics and corticosteroids varied widely based on perceived patient need and dentist expectations.