Case Study
A 23-year-old woman went to see her dentist for a regular checkup. During the visit, the doctor discovered that her lower third molars, which had appeared to be erupting fine on her last visit, may be contributing to the crowding in the patient’s mouth. He was afraid that they might eventually cause her discomfort and recommended that she have the third molars extracted. She agreed, and returned the following week for the procedure.
Before the dentist began to work, the patient told him that she had a low pain tolerance and asked that he make sure that her mouth was fully anesthetized. The dentist promised that he would take care of it, and then proceeded to inject the anesthetic in the mucous membrane on both sides of the patient’s mouth. The teeth were removed without incident. He then warned her not to attempt to chew any food until the anesthetic had worn off and she was able to feel her tongue and lower lip again, lest she damage them by chewing on them.
Case Study Questions
What injection(s) would the dentist give this patient in order to prevent pain during the extraction of the lower third molars?
Which nerve(s) caused the patient’s lower lip and the tongue to be numb? Identify the branch of the IAN or nerve for each location.
When dental work is performed on the lower teeth, a nerve block is often needed to produce complete local anesthesia of all the teeth in a quadrant. The same is not true for the upper teeth. Why not? What other injection technique can be used to anesthetize maxillary teeth?
Maxillary Nerves Diagram and Dental Procedures Scenarios
Draw and label all branches of the maxillary trigeminal nerve that innervate the buccal mucosa and the teeth on the diagram provided.
Once you have labeled the diagram, please take a picture of the diagram or scan your diagram and upload it to Brightspace. Ensure you take a picture that shows all of your drawings clearly.
In the chart below, read the scenario which corresponds to your group letter (A-B) and complete the task for your group only, by stating which nerve(s) will be anaesthetized in the last column of the chart for the procedure described.
