Lingual nerve damage at dentist

[mws]

I had a routine root canal last week. When inserting the second shot of anesthesia, there was a jolt of pretty significant pain - I pretty much levitated out of the chair. Abnormally high pain during injection as well. When removing the needle, same jolt of real pain. Yowsa. Big boys don't cry and all that, I said nothing. Tongue was immediately very numb, although the lip and tooth never went as numb as I expected. Endodontist had to inject more anesthetic directly into tooth pulp to finish procedure. Other than that, root canal went fine.

 

Right side and tip of my tongue never woke up. Still numb. Difficult to speak. Can't taste things. Fortunately, pain is not an issue for me at this point. But it sure is annoying.

 

Preliminary searching on internet says 85% cases will resolve themselves within 8 weeks so I'm going to chose to go with the odds and predict I'll be fine.

 

Even I wasn't fully aware of this possibility during routine dental work. But it sounds like it is not an uncommon thing at all - figures of 1 in 750,000 injections is the lowest incident rate I've read, some say much more frequently. For folks who tend to need lots of anesthetic, odds are worse. It usually takes several ampules to numb me. Every injection has some risk. I am reading that if I had immediately stopped the doctor when that yowsa first pain hit, I could have limited damage. I really wish I had known before. But now I, and you, do.

 

So just be aware of the possibility of this when a dentist has to do a nerve block when working on lower teeth. Let the doctor know you are aware of the risk of lingual nerve damage, make sure they are aware of it, and work out a signal to let them know if the shot REALLY hurts (some have described it feeling like electrical shock) so they can stop immediately and reduce damage. Some people have really serious long term repercussions - like constant pain for years. Ugly.

More info:

http://www.sciential.net/lingualnerveinjury.htm

[adamzan]

I had one of my front inscisors pulled because the teeth were crowding, anyways, the dentist had to use 4 needles in total luckily 3 hours later most of the feeling returned, and the rest was back by the next day. That was my first ever encounter with needles in my mouth, hopefully my last.

 

sorry to hear about that

[GrimGreg]

Joys of dental work.

 

I need to go have a third cracked tooth removed myself .

[TerranoNZ]

Funny I just had a wisdom tooth out last night...After about a 16 hours of wrathing round on the floor.

I'm sure they're all sadist's

[mws]

Joys of dental work.

 

I need to go have a third cracked tooth removed myself .

 

I hear ya. The root canal came about because a tooth cracked under a crown. Second time that sucker cracked. All in all, I have 9 crowns and one missing tooth due to cracking. Genetics are a wonderful thing, are they not?

[Kittamaru]

I never get injected... it doesn't work for me at all. Quite literally, I am immune to novacain. I've had two teeth pulled, both times without it - it's a bitch to learn, but detaching yourself from your physical body works a treat. Scared the piss out of the nurse when I told her not to shoot me up before they pulled the tooth. Kind of freaked her out a bit too when my eyes rolled into the back of my head as I tranced myself XD I could still feel it (they yanked hard as hell) but it worked 999% better than novacain (which does nothing at all)

[GrimGreg]

Oh, you still feel it even when the 8-12 (in my case) shots are in full effect. Last cracked one that they pulled felt like he was going to break my upper jaw out of my skull. There were just no "sharp" pains during the encounter.

 

Both of my upper rear molars were cracked by my wisdom teeth when they tried to appear (like 5 years ago). So then my wisdom teeth came in and took the place of the molars. Well, I think they cracked the one wisdom trying to wrench the molar out (which BTW they broke when they removed it, had a piece of tooth break out of my gum a month after the removal), so now that wisdom needs to go.

[ILoveMyPatty]

I'm so glad I'm 20 and haven't had one cavity, and all 4 wisdom teeth have grown in without the need to be removed. Ouch.

[88pathoffroad]

I have one broken off at the gum line that's slowly dissolving away and one that was previously filled that now has a hole in it under the filling. Joy, two more teeth gone. I'll need dentures by the time I'm fricking 40.

[Slick]

i feel ya Martin. it takes 4-6 shots to numb me and YES, i got the "shock shot" ONCE....... wow........ what a horrific experience that was. back tooth on top....... ow. that was noooooooo fun. the body jerk is completely involuntary for sure... my dentist knew immediately what happened.

[mws]

Great news! I'm getting feeling back after only 1 1/2 weeks!

 

Yet again, I am one of the lucky ones!

[FUELER]

Ah - you should have gotten your root canal with NO ANESTHETIC like I did.

 

 

I'm not joking, I broke my front teeth skateboarding in Europe, (Southern Poland near the Slovakian border to be exact) one of my fronts were completely demolished and the root was hanging out which made breathing quite painful, eating or drinking impossible.

 

The nearest dentist i could find did his work out of his basement... I was sketched out but the chair looked like a dentist chair, and i was in pain so i said lets do it!!! He ended up working on me with no gloves, no anesthetic and basically ripped the nerve out with a household pair of pliers.

 

 

I was entirely covered in sweat... clothes for the day were ruined.... nearly crapped in my pants (farted up a storm during the pulling, really surprised i didnt crap myself)

 

 

Losing lingual functions for 8 weeks inst all TOO bad... but i DO work at a phone job haha... so I don't know which I would rather choose.... that pain again. or losing lingual function...

 

 

i'd probably choose losing lingual functions for 8 wks

[FUELER]

Oh - and he gave me a temporary... told me that if the air pressure in the plane back to USA bothered me, just take this needle and ask a stewardess on the plane to poke a hole in the back of my tooth. (haha i was like yeah right)

 

Plane didnt bother me, luckily i had just enough tooth to do a crown but sooner or later im going to have to do that surgery where they drill a screw in your gums and put a tooth on it.

 

 

Hopefully it does let loose soon.... or ill be NPORA's resident crackhead lookin guy

[dagwoodzz]

Good to know. I had a tooth capped and the dentist got testy with me about whether or not I was feeling pain. I was mad b/c it was my mouth and I was feeling it.

 

I thought he was just being cheap and trying to increase his profit margin by going easy on the novicane. If what you posted is true perhaps he was trying to save me from nerve damage.

 

either way all is fine. no side effects.

[mws]

In my opinion, that is NOT a good sign in a dentist. Everybody is different with regards to sensitivity to numbing agents. The good dentists I've seen NEVER question whether I actually felt pain or not. If I jump, they shoot.

 

And to be clear, the nerve trauma was not due to the numbing agent, it was due to where the needle went. The lingual nerve is right next to the nerve they want to numb. And everybody's mouth geometry is a bit different, so it is not too difficult to accidently nick the lingual nerve. The key is to let them know immediately so they can back off and minimize danger.