What is dental local anesthesia?

Also known as: local anesthesia, local anesthetic.

Local anesthesia is a numbing medication that is applied to just one part of the body. It differs from regional anesthesia, which affects an entire area of the body, or general anesthesia, which makes the patient unconscious. Dentists use local anesthesia for a variety of procedures ranging from filling cavities to tooth extractions.


Reviewed by: Melissa Meincken, DDS

This page was last updated on: 1/29/2019 3:21:13 PM

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