Can you be put to sleep while they extract your teeth?!
Question:
Can you be put to sleep while they extract your teeth?
what I mean is, can they put somekind of gas or something on you while you get your tooth extracted to stop pain? or do you have to go through the pain?
Answers:
Local anesthetics these days are quite good-- With an injection of lidocaine, you usually can be awake while a tooth is being extracted and you would feel no pain.
If you are really nervous, a dentist might give you nitrous oxide (laughing gas) to make you more relaxed, but this is only an anxiolytic and does NOT numb pain. One still needs local anesthesia when using N2O.
If you do want to be knocked out for the procedure, you would go to an oral surgeon who can administer IV sedation. It's a lot more expensive to do this though.
In all three cases, you might feel some post-operative discomfort, which is usually easy to manage with an Rx of antibiotics and/or analgesics they will give you, or with OTC meds. The key is to follow the post-op instructions to prevent bad problems like dry sockets from happening.
When I had my wisdom teeth taken out, it was with just local block anesthesia with lidocaine. I felt no pain.
Hope this helps.