'Hitting a nerve' - just an expression?

[brit]

People often talk about dentists 'hitting a nerve' when drilling...how accurate is this expression?
Am I right in assuming that if you are properly anaethetised with local anaesthetic, a nerve will not ever be hit, or is there an area a dentist has to avoid even when the patient is fully anaeathetised with just local?

I realise that when administering local, you are aiming for near the nerve and not directly into it.

 

[olanda]

Ouch!! I'm hoping that this isn't true as I've still got lots of dental work to come!!

I'm sure that if you're properly anaethetised it's impossible to 'hit the nerve' in the sense of causing a patient pain - otherwise how would most root canal treatments (which involve removing the nerve) be painless?!
I guess the expression really comes from dentists working on patients when they're not properly numb (I've had that feeling a couple of times but only for a second as the dentist's always stopped and postponed thankfully!). Alternatively it might also come from dentists rarely and accidently touching the nerve during a lower nerve block injection (I've also had this happen, I truly have no dental luck ).

I guess 'hitting the nerve' is probably quite an old phrase that stems from the time when dentistry was much less advanced that it is now. It was perhaps a way for the dentist and the patient to explain the pain experienced without resorting to phrases such as 'dental negligence', 'mistake' or 'abuse'!! Another example is when my previous dentist told me I had 'shallow nerves' in one tooth, which is why it needed a root canal (instead of the fact that it needed a root canal - two, in fact, - due to his negligent dental treatment of it). Both 'explanations' that cover up/don't acknowledge bad dentistry!

I imagine 'hitting the nerve' has stuck around and might account for much of the fear of dentists people experience as they assume it's normal to 'hit a nerve'! I think the truth is that apart from exceptional or unfortunate circumstances, dentistry really shouldn't be especially painful, ever. 'Hitting the nerve' should be more or less obsolete!! Hopefully...

 

[DDSguy]

You would feel the dentist hitting the nerve if you weren't properly anesthetized. Sometimes the cavity is so deep that it goes straight to the nerve. The dentist needs to get all the decay out, so the nerve is hit. Sometimes medicine will be placed over the exposure and it will be filed, other times he/she will recommend a root canal. It just depends on the circumstances.

 

[olivacs]

I have had that happen so to speak....I had a rather deep cavity and it was so close to the nerve that they had to place some kind of medicint to help calm the nerve prior to placing the filling.

I would rather have that than a root canal...

 

[Shocked]

Several years ago, a dentist was replacing a filling. He had administered a local, but there was suddenly an extremely strong "jolt" of pain, and I ended up jumping, so to speak. (I couldn't literally jump, of course, but I jerked.) It was followed immediately by a strong taste of blood in my mouth.

He told me later it was because the dentist who had done the original filling had drilled into the nerve so that it was exposed when he took the filling out.

That sounds to me like "hitting the nerve" is not just an expression, but a real possibility, which has, at least once, actually happened. (Ask me why I don't trust dentists to do what's right by me.)

The second dentist told me the original guy should have told me he hit the nerve, put in some medcine to help it heal and watched it, but he never said a word.)

 

[brit]

The second dentist told me the original guy should have told me he hit the nerve, put in some medcine to help it heal and watched it, but he never said a word.)

Hard to know which dentist is telling the truth in that scenario ...

 

[Shocked]

I agree. But hitting a nerve seems to definitely be a possibility, however it happened.