VN May 2023

Vetnuus | May 2023 36 During a dental procedure, you invariably may end up extracting teeth or raising gingiva-mucosal flaps to close oral defects. These commonly performed procedures are painful and can cause morbidity in a patient if the pain is not treated and managed adequately. Regional nerve blocks are classified as a type of pre-emptive analgesia. 2 Pre-emptive analgesia is defined as a ‘treatment initiated before and is operational during the surgical procedure to reduce the physiological consequences of nociceptive transmission provoked by the procedure’. 2 There are several advantages of doing a nerve block. It reduces pain intra-operatively, allowing patients to be maintained on a lower level of inhalant anaesthesia during the procedure. In doing so, it decreases complications such as hypoventilation, hypotension and bradycardia caused by inhalant anaesthetics. 1,3 It can also provide post-operative analgesia (depending on the duration of action of the drug used), leaving patients more comfortable during their recovery. 1 Patients being less painful will return to normal behaviour much quicker. 6 What is needed to perform a nerve block? The materials needed are quite simple and inexpensive and will be available in most practices. You will need a 1ml syringe, a 25G-27G needle with a length of ¾ to 1 inch and a local anaesthetic agent of choice. 1 For equine patients, larger volume syringes (3-20ml) and longer needles (1.5” 25G hypodermic needle and 3.5” to 5” spinal or Touhy needle) will be required. 7 Regional nerve blocks in veterinary dentistry: Part I Dr. Mareli van de Wetering (VetdentSA) and Prof. Gerhard Steenkamp (UP) Image courtesy of www.Todaysveterinarypractice.com