Local Anesthesia

There are three professions within the medical community that extensively use local anesthetics, also known as a local numbing solution. They are dentists, dermatologists, and podiatrists. Local anesthesia is great for clinical practice because it allows for bedside or in-house surgical procedures without having to knock the patient out cold. Dentists use this for almost all their work including fillings, crowns, and those awful root canals. Dermatologists use this to remove a lesion or a mole for biopsy. Podiatrists can use local anesthetics for a number of procedures including an ingrown-toenail surgery. They are great because of their quick action and very low chance of side effects. Some of the popular names of anesthetics you may have heard of are Lidocaine, Sensorcaine, or Novocaine, which is from back in the day.

So how do they work? Well the injections are targeted at specific nerve sites. Without going into all the boring chemistry, they basically stop the nerves from telling the brain that a painful stimulus is going on. Now here is where a doctor’s wording can be tricky. Your doctor shouldn’t tell you, “You won’t feel a thing.” This isn’t necessarily always true. You will feel the deep pressure or sensation of touch, but you should not feel any pain associated with that pressure. For example, when your podiatrist is working on your toenail when you have been administered a local anesthetic, you may feel that he is touching your toe or using a tool of some sort, but you should feel no pain associated with whatever action he is doing. Some people think that if they feel any form of pressure, they haven’t been given enough anesthetic and this isn’t the case. And as always, for any concerns with your feet, come by and see Dr.Grimm or Dr.Pattison at Foot Associates of Central Texas.