Treatment of teeth with arsenic or under anesthesia: the pros and cons
There are two main ways to treat pulpitis - with anesthesia and pulp removal without preliminary necrosis or using a drug that causes complete destruction of the structure of the dental nerve.
Treatment with devitalizing agents appeared long before the appearance of local anesthetics. This method ideally allows you to remove the pulp painlessly and bloodlessly. However, in practice everything can be not so smooth.
The complexity of dosing the drug is that each tooth has an individual sensitivity, depending on the type of inflammation of the pulp, the presence of pulp exposure and other nuances.
As a result, the same dosage in one case will be insufficient to completely destroy the nerve, and in the other will lead to a toxic effect on the periodontium. The patient either experiences repeated pain during a repeated visit, or complains of considerable and prolonged soreness when the teeth are closed and the food is chewed.
To avoid such a result, analgesic components are introduced into the formulation, but they are not always effective. To make the drug work more reliably, it should be applied to the open area of the pulp. If such a hole is absent, its creation without anesthesia will burn to give the patient additional pain.
Modern painkillers allow to completely exclude pain during treatment. They allow partial or complete removal of the dental nerve in one visit, without stretching this unpleasant procedure for two visits. A treatment of pulpitis biological or conservative method, in which the pulp is stored, arsenic is impossible by definition. In this case, the qualitative treatment of the carious cavity and other manipulations should be performed only after a good analgesia.
In addition, after using arsenic or a similar preparation, further tooth treatment can only be done by mummification. The preservation of the viability of the pulp in numerous branches of the root canals becomes impossible, and the doctor can only try to restrain the decomposition of the soft tissues inside the tooth.
There are several reasons for using it:
Treatment with devitalizing agents appeared long before the appearance of local anesthetics. This method ideally allows you to remove the pulp painlessly and bloodlessly. However, in practice everything can be not so smooth.
The complexity of dosing the drug is that each tooth has an individual sensitivity, depending on the type of inflammation of the pulp, the presence of pulp exposure and other nuances.
As a result, the same dosage in one case will be insufficient to completely destroy the nerve, and in the other will lead to a toxic effect on the periodontium. The patient either experiences repeated pain during a repeated visit, or complains of considerable and prolonged soreness when the teeth are closed and the food is chewed.
One of the first stages of the action of arsenic on the pulp of the tooth is the intensification of swelling of soft tissues. In this case, toothache can significantly increase for a period of several hours to a day.
To avoid such a result, analgesic components are introduced into the formulation, but they are not always effective. To make the drug work more reliably, it should be applied to the open area of the pulp. If such a hole is absent, its creation without anesthesia will burn to give the patient additional pain.
Modern painkillers allow to completely exclude pain during treatment. They allow partial or complete removal of the dental nerve in one visit, without stretching this unpleasant procedure for two visits. A treatment of pulpitis biological or conservative method, in which the pulp is stored, arsenic is impossible by definition. In this case, the qualitative treatment of the carious cavity and other manipulations should be performed only after a good analgesia.
In addition, after using arsenic or a similar preparation, further tooth treatment can only be done by mummification. The preservation of the viability of the pulp in numerous branches of the root canals becomes impossible, and the doctor can only try to restrain the decomposition of the soft tissues inside the tooth.
Why is the use of arsenic still not forgotten today?
There are several reasons for using it:
- 1) If the patient has an allergy to local anesthetics, their use becomes impossible. In this case, preference is usually given to arsenic or its analogues, less often to anesthetics.
- 2) Panic fear of the patient of various injections, especially in the oral cavity. Part of this fear can be removed with the use of premedication, but some patients still insist on the non-use of injections.
- 3) Low qualification of the doctor, which does not provide enough reliable anesthesia when using local anesthetics.
- 4) Fear of the doctor, fear of such formidable complications as anaphylactic shock. If the doctor has already encountered a similar condition in his patient, this can cause not only fear of any injection, but also lead to the cessation of medical activity.