Painful dentist appointments may be long gone, as researchers in Brazil have developed a new anaesthetic technique that will not cause any pain to the patient.
This new technique can replace anaesthetic injections that many find painful and uncomfortable. The new procedure uses small amounts of electricity to enhance painkillers' effectiveness. The local painkiller can be used in the form of a gel or a spray.
Not only could this encourage people who are afraid of needles to visit dentists more frequently, the new anaesthetic technique is also more cost-effective and could reduce the risk of contamination and infection, researchers from University of São Paulo said.
It may be a while down the road before the needless anaesthetic will be put to use. So far the research team has tested the technique on tissue samples taken from pigs' mucous membrane.
The pain caused by dental injections can be explained by the number of nerves located in mouth. Each tooth has up to a thousand nerve fibers that deliver the sensation of pain to the brain through pain receptors.