Before having a tooth drilled into by a dentist, most people are happy to have been injected by a syringe full of painkiller.  The common name for this anesthetic that inhibits pain is “Novocaine.”

Before the use of Novocaine-type products, dentists administered cocaine as a local anesthetic. It helped initially by constricting blood cells the result of which reduced the amount of bleeding during oral procedures. The downside, of course, was that the drug proved to be exceedingly addictive creating the need for replacement anesthetic.

 

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By the early twentieth century a synthetic form of cocaine was developed that didn’t include the addictive effects of the original drug. This artificial cocaine was called “Procaine,”  however it has gained notoriety by its trade name, “Novocaine.”  Since that time, however, stronger forms of the anesthetic have been developed giving us such drugs as “Lidocaine,” “Mepivocaine,” and “Septacaine,” though each of these drugs is still referred to as Novocaine.

All of these drugs which are administered through injection work in the same fashion by blocking the nerves that transmit the pain signals to the brain, and in the process create the lack of feeling, or numbness associated with this drug. Typically an injection of this anesthetic lasts between 3 and 4 hours.

Many find the injection itself a bit painful (though compared to the pain they might experience during a dental procedure it is considerably small), however, dentists have made even this more endurable. A topical anesthesia is usually administered in the area where the injection will be given to even deaden this sensation making dentistry about as painless as possible.