Local Anesthetics

Essay by markamparoUniversity, Bachelor'sA-, January 2009

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Dentistry is defined as the branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases of the oral cavity. A trip to the dental office twice a year is essential as they can efficiently clean our teeth with special tools that we often miss at home, as well as detect tooth decay and periodontal diseases with a trained eye. Having healthy teeth is aesthetically important and essential to the quality of life because it would be difficult to chew and eat without them. However, some individuals cringe at the words dentist and dental office. Many individuals are afraid of a trip to the dentist and experience immense anxiety or stress due to fear of dental pain, and the terrifying noises of the equipment used. In addition, patients are also apprehensive of certain surgeries that require the use of anesthesia. The thought of being ‘put under’ with Lidocaine, not only helps the individual deal with the pain, but have concerns over drooling over one-self, biting one’s lip, and the time they would regain normal sense of feeling in one’s face after leaving the office.

The distress regarding the ‘after’ effects of local anesthetics, Lidocaine, have somewhat been championed by a local San Diego company, Novalar. The company’s objective is to bring about novel solutions to dentistry that would revolutionize patient care and experience. In the article brought forth by Xconomy San Diego on November 14, 2008, it describes Novalar’s pitch to comfortably un-numb dental anesthesia with Oraverse (phentolamine mesylate), a drug they discovered. The company’s founder, Dr. Eckard Weber, pondered the issue of cutting the time in half of regaining the sense of feeling with his dentist, as well as the business aspect that no one else in the industry has found a solution to comfortably un-numb the effects...