M
Mbteeth
Junior member
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2011
- Messages
- 4
Is it possible to be put to sleep using gas instead of an iv to have wisdom teeth out. I have a fear of needles.
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Is it possible to be put to sleep using gas instead of an iv to have wisdom teeth out. I have a fear of needles.
I think with kids there's a very short-acting general anaesthetic (GA) that can be used for very short periods of time. Children's teeth are usually very easy to remove I think, and it may only take seconds, so this type of GA is suitable for the purpose.
Adult wisdom teeth that need to come out are usually more difficult to remove than kids' teeth (I think) and it would take longer. Therefore the same short-acting GA can't be used (I think ). So the preferred option tends to be IV sedation rather than GA.
Maybe one of our resident dentists can shed some light on this
Thanks for the replies. The reason I ask is I have a friend that works at a children's dentist office and they put kids to sleep (anesthesia) using some type of gas. I just didn't know if they did that for adults.
Gordon, I want to know why you know what wet fur coats smell like.............sounds like a good story
I was hoping to stay out of this, since it's going to involve a lot of typing
1) You need to distinguish between sedation and anaesthesia. Sedation means you can sort of communicate and your protective reflexes are intact. Anaesthesia means you can't do either.
2) You can get to anaesthesia in 2 ways, with IV agents or with gasses. This is called "Induction". Once anaesthesia is established, it's usual practice to maintain it with gas.
3) It used to be very unpleasant to induce with gas, they smelled pretty bad and it was a fairly slow process especially for adults. There's a newer agent out now called Sevofluorane which doesn't smell too bad (a bit like wet fur coats!) and works very quickly.
4) All anaesthetists will want IV access during the GA for an adult, most will want it for children too.
5) Some anaesthetists are happy to induce anaesthesia with Sevo but they'll want to put an IV in right after the patient is asleep, which is fine as far as most patients are concerned.
6) For short GAs such as kids extractions then most anaesthetists are happy to manage the airway (see 1 about reflexes) for a couple of minutes. For anything more than 5 mins, then they need to use additional hardware to keep the patient breathing (this is usually considered a good thing )
So the normal chain of events for a very needle phobic patient would be: Induce GA with Sevo, establish IV access, insert breathing equipment, maintain GA with gasses, carry out treatment.
Trying to answer 3 different posts in one, sorry if it's a bit of an essay