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Allergy to Novacaine

K

kwoodts2

Junior member
Joined
May 18, 2009
Messages
1
I have a severe allergy to novacaine and I think the dentists think I am crazy. I have been going to the dentist and each time my reaction got worse and worse with each visit until the final visit. I immediately left the dentist and went to my health Dr. My face was swollen, palms red, difficutly breathing and was placed on steriods. My Dr. recommended that I no longer take any local anethetic and that no allergy test would show this allergy. Since I went to the allergist about 1 month before this visit, I find that to be true. Has anyone has such a severe reaction? I can only get dentist work done with an IV sedation, which is not easy to find here.
 
Hi and :welcome:,

sorry to hear about your problem :(. That must be pretty frightening. We've got some information on allergies to local anaesthetics here.

If it is a genuine allergy, has an allergy to the preservatives in local anaesthetic been ruled out? Allergy testing for these should be relatively straightforward. If it is an allergy to preservatives (which is way, way more common than allergy to the anaesthetic agents used nowadays), then using a local anaesthetic without epinephrine could be the solution (the preservatives are only added to preserve the epinephrine).

I'm not sure how IV sedation would help if you were genuinely allergic, as local anaesthetic still needs to be used for IV sedation.

I hope the information on the page mentioned above is of use to you :grouphug:
 
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