It doesn’t take much effort for the imagination to conjure the worst when trying to envision a procedure that entails drills, titanium bolts and your jawbone. But as painful as it may seem, you probably won’t feel any pain when you have your dental implants placed.
Local Anesthesia
For most dental implant patients, local anesthesia will be all that’s needed to get through the implant placement part of the procedure.
A simple needle prick to the implant site and you won’t feel any discomfort until well after the procedure has been wrapped up. And by then, you should have some over-the-counter pain pills handy to help you get through the next day or so.
If the sticking point for you is needles, and not the procedure itself, talk to your dentist about oral options for pain relief and sedation. An oral option may require that you spend a little more time at your appointment, but it can help you avoid needles.
General Anesthesia
If you need more than one implant, your dentist may offer you the option to have general anesthesia. General anesthesia typically won’t be required, even when placing eight dental implants for implant-supported dentures. You can get through the entire placement with just local anesthesia and you won’t feel much, if any discomfort.
The bar is a bit higher for qualifying for general anesthesia, as your current health and medical history will play a larger role in helping your dentist, and possibly your primary care physician, decide if general anesthesia is safe for you.
If it’s just a fear of not being able to comfortably sit through the procedure, talk to your dentist about your sedation options. Along with local anesthesia, an additional sedative can help you relax and sit still without putting you to sleep.
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