Have Trigeminal Neuralgia? What You Need To Know About Dental Care & Sedation Dentistry

If you have trigeminal neuralgia, you may have been neglecting your teeth and rightly so since the condition you have is so extremely painful that it is known as the suicide disease. Obviously, you never want to do anything to trigger the pain, but if doing nothing has changed your pearly whites to an awful shade of yellow, you may be wondering what your options are. Here's what you can do about it.

Sedation for Dental Care & Treatments

People with trigeminal neuralgia are good candidates for sedation, even for dental care and treatment that typically does not require sedation, such as professional dental cleanings and teeth whitening treatments. Of course, you'll need to discuss your medical history and your prescription and over-the-counter pain medication usage with your dentist and their anesthesiologist prior to having sedation in the dental chair. That way, the medication used to sedate you will not interfere with the medication you need to control your trigeminal neuralgia.

As with any medical and dental procedure, it's a good idea to keep your neurosurgeon and neurologist informed as well. Your medical care professionals and your dental care professionals may want to confer with each other to make sure everyone is on the same page, especially to keep your pain from occurring with a vengeance due to too much stimulation in the oral cavity and facial regions, which are affected by trigeminal neuralgia.

Scheduling Your Dental Office Visits

It's also important that you schedule your dental office visits so that the timing of being sedated does not interfere with your regular dosages of medication. As you probably already know, the medication that you take to control the trigeminal neuralgia needs to be taken exactly on time or it could cause the pain to be triggered by a sensation or movement. Obviously, neither you nor the dentist wants this to happen when you are getting dental care and treatments, or it could lead to a dangerous situation with your mouth automatically clenching closed due to the trigeminal neuralgia pain.

For example, if your medication is scheduled to be taken every 6 hours, schedule the dental sedation within the first hour or two after taking a dosage of that medication. If you take a number of medications at various times, this may entail sitting down with your anesthesiologist and dentist to come up with the best time that will be the safest for you and everyone involved.