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Could Novacaine travel to the brain?!?

(4 posts)

  1. Chaaaaness!
    Member

    Im pretty sure the novacaine from yesterday's visit has something to with my killer headache.

    Last night, I felt like I was going to die. My headache was unbarable and I felt very sick and light-headed.

    I still feel like that today and so far, I took one advil last night and one in the morning right away.

    Can novacaine travel to the brain or something that's making me have a massive headache?

    At the dentist, I had to get a possibly root canal so they had to drill away all the decay to find out if I needed a root canal. So they used navacaine - each dosage is about 10-15 DROPS of novacaine and he gave me navacaine about...5 times. So that's 50+ drops on ONE side of my cheek. Afterwards, my whole left side of my head was numb all the way to my forehead.

    Let me know your thoughts/advice on how to get rid of a headache and the possibilities that the headache is due to the Novacaine.
    The drops of Novacaine was actually told to me by my dentist. It's a needle connected to a little beeper thing machine and every drop, there's a beep. I counted with him and each full shot is about 10 beeps. He had to use the beep machine 5 times on me.

    Im not sure how much it really was.

    But I am feeling better =) My tooth feels good too now! before, It felt like it was aching!

    Posted 2 years ago #

  2. Joseph
    Member

    Novocaine is a local anesthetic. Local. It means that it doesn't travel through the blood stream to the brain or to other parts of your body. It's only use is to anesthetise the area where it is placed. In your case, Around the tooth root that the dentist was working on. Root Canal work is the most painful work and cannot be performed successful without anesthetic. I suspect that your headache is from the actual work that the dentist performed. Drilling, pressure, repair, and whatever. Not from the novocaine. You didn't experience pain or the result of pain while you had the novocaine, but as it wore off, the results of the dental work is the residual headache, which will disappear soon enough. Good Luck.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  3. grandpa walleye
    Member

    The only way the local anesthetic could spread to the brain would be if it was inadvertently injected into an artery or vein. To avoid this, that is why the dentist always aspirates the syringe before depositing the anesthetic. If that were to happen, there would be an immediate reaction and a medical emergency would occur.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  4. naenae0011
    Member

    Rest assured that although it seemed like a lot of local anaesthetic was used, that is actually within the safe amount. I'm not sure where you got your information about 10-15 drops of novocaine... but I'm going to assume that might be equivalent to 1 carpule of novocaine ( 1 carpule = 1.8mL ). The maximum safe dose per appointment, for a healthy person (no severe cardiac disease) is 11 carpules!! So the 5 carpules you think you had was actually half of the safe dosage.

    There is epinephrine (adrenaline) in the novocaine (this is to help constrict blood vessels and decrease bleeding at the site of interest), so if the solution happens to get directly injected into a blood vessel, it could cause similar symptoms to the way panic feels... racing heart rate, increased respirations. There is a chance it might have some relation to your headache, but I agree with Joseph... it was likely the actual procedure that caused it.

    Hope you're feeling better.

    Posted 2 years ago #

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