Hello everyone. Today we are continuing with the dental implants topic I mentioned in the last video. Today's main subject is this: Is dental implant treatment painful? Let's talk about it a little. Dental implants are generally placed under local anesthesia. In some cases, in situations with coordination problems, in old age, in patients with a high degree of fear and anxiety, yes, there are cases where we do it under general anesthesia. But in general, local anesthesia is applied during the procedure.
Before the local anesthesia injection, topical anesthesia in the form of a gel or spray is applied to the area and the pain of the needle's entry is reduced. In this way our patient does not feel pain during the procedure. Rather than pain, the following sensations may occur: pressure, a feeling of touch, sensing heat and cold. Because local anesthetics do not remove these sensations. All they do is cut the pain pathway. If the local anesthesia is applied correctly, our patient can complete their treatment quite comfortably during the procedure.
So I had the implant placed, I'm going home, what awaits me? Will I have pain? How many days will I have pain and will this pain be unbearable? There are a few methods I use in my own clinic to relieve and reduce pain after the procedure. One of them is to give the patient the painkiller I prescribed half an hour before the procedure. Then, of course, depending on the type of painkiller, I have them take the painkiller again on a full stomach 4 hours later. Afterwards my patients can continue the painkiller morning and evening.
When I call my patients on the 3rd postoperative day, the first question I ask is how often they used the painkiller and for how many days. The answer I usually get is: doctor, morning and evening was enough, yes I used it for 2 days, on the 3rd day I took one in the morning, I felt I could do without the evening one. So your postoperative pain is usually about this much.
The severity and duration of postoperative pain can vary depending on the treatments performed during the procedure. What are they? Sometimes we can use bone powders during the procedure. That is, we can do soft and hard tissue augmentations. Or I may do a soft tissue transfer, or the number of implants may increase. Or what we call immediate placement, which we will talk about again in another video, that is, if the tooth is extracted and the implant is placed in that session, the degree and duration of pain can change in cases like these. So if a patient of mine says I used painkillers for a week, this does not mean there is a problem after the procedure. This period is acceptable for us.
Before I finish my video, let's talk about postoperative swelling. Swelling, like pain, varies from person to person, but generally it swells as much as it is going to by the 3rd day. After that the swelling starts to decrease. To prevent this swelling from occurring or to keep it very small, I give my patients a few recommendations. One of them is, of course, applying ice. The second is that I generally prefer them not to lie on that side. If it was done on both sides, I recommend lying on their back supported with 2 pillows. I want them to position their head above the level of the heart. With small precautions like these, swelling is reduced. In some patients it does not occur at all. In others, as I said, predictable swelling may occur. These swellings can again vary depending on the amount and duration of the procedures performed during the operation.
Periodontology Specialist Nergiz Hamamcı
Özel Klinik 99 Oral and Dental Health Polyclinic