What should you not do before visiting the dentist?

Drinking alcohol

No matter how much you are afraid of dentists, you should not drink “for courage” before going to the clinic. Alcohol and anesthesia are incompatible things. It happens that the anesthetic simply does not work because it is blocked by alcohol. For this reason, you should not drink alcohol for at least 12 hours before visiting your doctor.

If you are very worried about fear, then fight it in other ways. For example, you can sign up for a consultation, and before the procedures, talk to the doctor and just sit in a chair. It should also be understood that modern dentistry has stepped far ahead compared to what it was even 10-15 years ago. The effectiveness of the techniques has increased dramatically, and pain, both during the procedures and after their completion, has been minimized.

What do you need to know before going to the dentist?

Visiting the dentist is a fear for many. To make your visit to the doctor as effective as possible and to be fully prepared, you need to remember some rules. Specialists at the Happy Smile clinic tell you in detail what you need to know before going to the dentist.

There's no need to be afraid

Modern dentistry has methods of pain relief that reduce discomfort and pain during treatment, prosthetics, and even tooth extraction to zero. Some people are afraid of injections, but even here there is practically no pain, since doctors use the following methods:

injections are performed with special syringes with thin and sharp needles;
the injection site is pre-treated with a spray or gel with an anesthetic;
for easier penetration of the needle, the mucous membrane is dried;
the medicine is administered gradually, slowly, so that it accumulates at the site of inflammation.

Lidocaine and novocaine in modern dental clinics are replaced by new generation drugs with a more powerful effect, so the patient does not feel anything even with complex molar removal.

When choosing dentistry you need to consider:

availability of high-quality multi-profile equipment;
range of services provided;
professionalism, skill of specialists.

Dentistry Happy Smile is one of the leading dental clinics, where services are provided for treatment, whitening, prosthetics, implantation, and tooth extraction. The medical center employs highly specialized dentists who regularly improve their skills and provide services at the highest level.

Is it possible to eat before going to the clinic?

If the treatment will take place under anesthesia, it is necessary to have a snack. This is due to several reasons:

Less saliva is produced. Dry mucous membranes are necessary for fillings and diagnosing certain diseases. If a person is hungry, he is provided with increased salivation;
Immediately after therapy you cannot eat for 1-2 hours, so it is advisable to eat before the procedure so as not to feel hungry later.

Excessive consumption of food is also not advisable before taking it, otherwise nausea and vomiting may occur, especially in people with a sensitive reflex.

Eating is strictly prohibited if the treatment is carried out under anesthesia. The anesthesiologist should tell you detailed rules for preparing for this procedure.

Can I drink alcohol?

Some people believe that if you drink a little alcohol before going to the dentist, dental treatment will not be so scary. In fact, drinking alcohol is strictly prohibited, at least 24 hours before a dental procedure. It can block the action of the pain medication, making treatment painful or even impossible.

It is also worth remembering that the dentist has every right to refuse to treat a patient who is intoxicated.

What should you not do before going to the dentist?

Try to drown out bad breath with mints, chewing gum and other methods. Odor is one of the diagnostic criteria that in some cases helps the dentist make the correct diagnosis;
Taking painkillers. If you have to visit a doctor because of acute pain, you should stop taking any painkillers a few hours before leaving home. For a dentist, pain response is important. It evaluates the severity, intensity, and speed of onset of pain when exposed to irritants, and tablets significantly complicate diagnosis.
Conceal information from your doctor about taking medications, especially blood thinners. Otherwise, there is a high risk of bleeding and other complications. Sometimes the dentist recommends stopping such medications for a while and scheduling a visit for another time.
Hide information about the presence of an allergic reaction, existing diseases of internal organs, hereditary pathologies, the presence of menstruation, menopause. All this may affect further therapy.

What should you take with you?

You must come to any medical institution with a passport or medical insurance. It is advisable to have SNILS with you in paper or electronic form. Also, be sure to take with you the results of x-rays, previous studies, if they were not carried out in this clinic, conclusions and recommendations of the doctor.

You need to plan your appointment in advance

A trip to the dentist should be planned in advance, otherwise, if the doctor does not have a free window, the patient may simply not be seen. The exception is cases with acute pain. In this case, the doctor cannot refuse an examination.

The duration of the visit depends on the complexity of the procedure. A regular examination lasts on average 15-20 minutes, professional cleaning up to 1 hour, treatment can take more than 60 minutes. It is better to arrive early in order to have time to complete all the necessary documents. If a patient is late or cannot come to the clinic, this should be reported.

When should you not go to the dentist?

It is better to postpone going to the dentist in the following cases:

the presence of herpes, elevated body temperature;
viral diseases of the respiratory tract;
period of menstruation in women;
nasal congestion or severe runny nose;
excessive drinking on the eve of the visit;
bad feeling.

In the office, you should calm down, answer all questions clearly and truthfully, and follow all the instructions of the attending physician. Only in this case will a trip to the dental center be easy and painless.

There's nothing to eat

For some reason, many people think that they should not eat before dental or any other treatment. This is wrong. You can’t eat before taking a general blood test, but you can and even need to eat before going to the dentist. If you go to the doctor on an empty stomach, then after the anesthetic is administered you may feel dizzy and feel ill. To prevent this from happening, be sure to have a snack. Moreover, you cannot eat food for several hours after the procedures.

What to do before surgery

Almost every second person hears this phrase: “We need to have an operation.” This is life - diseases find our body and bring physical suffering, and we bring them to the doctor. More than one hundred and sixty years ago, the first patient flew to the kingdom of Morpheus under the supervision of a physician and returned back - on October 16, 1846, dentist Thomas Morton performed an official operation under anesthesia. Today I will tell you how to minimize the risk of surgery without risking your health.

Saying

Having been practicing in anesthesiology for more than ten years, I have rarely seen a patient who was specially preparing for surgery. Yes, there are patients who lead a healthy lifestyle, and they are always ready to withstand some unusual physical and non-physiological stress on the body with relative ease. But there are few of them; more often we come across clients with several chronic diseases who poison their bodies with bad habits. And suddenly one fine day they decided to change something in their physical shell (we do not treat the soul). They consult a doctor, who determines the indications, excludes contraindications and sets a date for hospitalization. Well, this is good, let them be operated on as planned, rather than being brought in on an emergency call with a full stomach, wild pain and drunk.

Next I will contact you personally. God forbid, of course, that you have to seek our help, so let everything be pretend, like in kindergarten - I’m a doctor, you’re a patient.

Let's play doctor

We will not talk about emergency surgical interventions; nothing depends on you here. So - you have time. A week, a month, even two to think about it before a planned operation - and what do you do? In the best case, undergo examinations prescribed by a specialist. But usually, you don’t do anything, then just come to the hospital, where they examine you and operate on you. You are completely at the mercy of the doctor and medical staff. Well, like - here I am, as I am, a kind of gift, and you are obliged to cure me. I must say, in this case, you are right - our task is to ensure that you are discharged with at least positive dynamics. But you must understand that a lot depends on your participation.

It's like being with a beautiful girl. Imagine that the patient is a girl and the doctor is a guy. Purely hypothetically. He has been seeking her reciprocity for three months now, she doesn’t seem to mind, but she doesn’t let him either. The guy was already tired, the fuse began to pass. The girl, seeing this matter, went for intimacy. He overextended himself, but she is cold, lies and waits for it to end. She thinks, “I gave him a gift,” and he thinks, “Damn, what a log.” Moreover, as a result of unsafe sex, a complication arose - she became pregnant. Happens? Of course it happens. He burned out, the love passed, but like a normal guy, he will have to get married. Everyone is disappointed. The girl and the guy got an unhappy marriage.

It’s the same in the operating room - those three months, these are three days before the operation, during which they did not have time to properly prepare the patient, sex - the operation. Due to smoking and uncorrected hypertension, we suffered bronchospasm during the operation, the body stopped receiving enough oxygen, one complication developed into another - and now there was a hemorrhagic stroke. Marriage is when a doctor was ordered by a court to pay monthly alimony to relatives. Everyone is disappointed.

What am I talking about? And in order not to disappoint either the guy with long dynamos and boring sex with consequences, or the doctor with unpreparedness for surgical treatment and complications, you need to prepare yourself for... well, at least for surgery.

Where to begin?

The first is desire, even so - DESIRE!!! A strong desire to get rid of the disease. They didn’t just lead you by the hand, but you yourself wanted to come and have the operation. So that you look forward to this day, like the day of getting rid of an illness. We understood that it would be better later. Only this attitude will be correct. It has long been noted that a person in critical condition without the desire to survive is likely to “play the box.” And the wild desire for life works wonders.

The second is to get examined and decide on the possibility of surgery at all. You may need to undergo a course of treatment before you are allowed to go under the knife. This is normal, we must be sure of the success of the operation.

So, everything is fine, your internal organs are in a compensated state and the outpatient doctor suggests going to the hospital in a week.

You have a whole week.

What can you do in a week?

Control your blood pressure levels

It is no secret that patients with uncontrolled hypertension are more likely to experience high blood pressure during spinal anesthesia and have a higher risk of stroke and heart attack after general anesthesia.

Measure your weight

Calculate your body mass index. I strongly recommend that obese people lose a couple of kilograms.

Body mass index is calculated using the formula:
,
Where:
m - body weight in kilograms
h - height in meters,
and is measured in kg/m².
For example, a person’s mass = 85 kg, height = 164 cm. Therefore, BMI = 85: (1.64 × 1.64) = 31.6. An index of 18-25 is considered the norm.

Lose weight not only through diet - a complete refusal of food will not lead to anything good. There will be a breakdown of one’s own muscle tissue, a decrease in the protein pool, increased catabolism, which means tissue healing will be difficult, possibly even with purulent complications, since the immune system will also suffer.

A diet low in fat and carbohydrates, high in protein, and movement are recommended. If possible, run. No? Then walk a lot. This way you will lose extra pounds, increase the endurance of the heart muscle to overload, and improve the respiratory function of the lungs.

Avoid psychological overload! It is not forbidden to take sedatives. And it is mandatory to take the medications that your doctor prescribes.

About smoking

Give up bad habits. Ideally - completely, but it is also possible for a while before surgery. It is not my task to teach you to quit smoking - there are many manuals on this topic, tons of waste paper has been written, millions of bytes have been crammed into the Internet.

Ideally, according to recent research, you need to quit smoking two weeks before the upcoming surgery. It is during this period that the oxygen capacity of the blood is restored, almost equal to that of non-smokers, and the lung tissue is cleansed.

Are you having trouble quitting smoking? Well, the only thing I can reassure you with is that smokers recover nerve cells better after clinical death. But smoke lovers still have a higher chance of getting it during and after surgery.

About alcohol

It’s better not to use it at all this week. Well, maybe sip a glass of red wine or a shot glass at lunch or before bed.

I am not a supporter of completely giving up alcohol; I believe that it is better to sleep peacefully after an evening glass of wine than to suffer from insomnia all night and develop hypertension. But I warn drunkards - surgical intervention is stressful, often alcoholics in the postoperative period produce severe delirious visions. And I have never seen such a client enjoy them. These visions force a person to act, defend himself, run away, cause additional harm to his body, and how many such madmen cause problems for the staff! In my presence, naked “Ophiuchus” men ran away from the department, threw bottles, and hid under the bed from the shaggy creatures. And one, lying in the trauma department, played snowballs with guess what? It was lucky, those who had a hand injury ran away, and those who were fixed to the bed, it was really scary for them. Such patients have to be firmly fixed and their brains clouded with narcotic drugs.

Speaking of drug addicts - this applies to a greater extent to those who use hard drugs - no one will take you to the operating table with withdrawal symptoms.

About veins

Take care of your veins! Leave a good vein for the operation; do not inject it or take blood for analysis. During surgery, let this vein work for you. In any case, we will find the vessel, but we will get our hands dirty, and we may have to look for the central vein, which is fraught with complications.

And I’ll tell you a secret - you can grow veins! No, new ones will not appear, but they will increase in diameter, which will make their puncture possible. Any physical activity on the arms increases the filling of the blood vessels of the upper extremities. Pull-ups, push-ups, even working with a wrist expander will help increase their volume.

By following these recommendations, you can at least calmly say to yourself: “I did my best.” Believe me, this is a lot!

Be healthy!

Vladimir Shpinev

Photo thinkstockphotos.com

Take painkillers

If painkillers have not been prescribed by your doctor, then before going to the dentist it is better not to take them at all. It is clear that toothache is very unpleasant and painful, but if you drink a painkiller before going to the dentist, the anesthesia may not work or may not be fully effective. As a result, treatment will have to be delayed.

You can take a painkiller 6 hours before your dentist appointment. Then, if the pain returns, you can brew yourself some soothing chamomile tea.

But this rule is valid only if the doctor did not prescribe anything to you. If the dentist himself prescribed you pills, take them without fear.

What not to do before visiting the dentist

The man lay unconscious. The assistant rubbed his temples and forehead with ammonia, and the doctor stood a step away and fanned him with a towel. When the patient came to his senses, he reluctantly admitted: “I was advised not to eat anything before the appointment.” There are many different situations that doctors and patients face, but there are 3 that cannot be kept silent about. This letter is about what not to do before visiting the dentist.

________________________________________

Sometimes they are so afraid of dentists that before the appointment they drink one hundred grams of combat dentistry. It seems that my soul is lighter, and not scary at all. But in reality, this “sedative” interferes with treatment.

Alcohol and anesthesia are incompatible. When the doctor administers the anesthetic, it may simply not work. It seems like they gave an injection, but there was no effect. They still prick, but the lip does not go numb. Therefore, drinking 12 hours before your appointment is prohibited.

If you are very afraid of dentists, then do not go for treatment right away. Make an appointment, sit in a chair, talk to the doctor. The fear will quickly disappear and you yourself will want the doctor to help you.

It is unknown who originated this myth, but it exists. They say that you should not eat anything before visiting the dentist. This is wrong. Before a general blood test, they do not eat, and then in the morning. And before visiting the dentist, be sure to eat.

If you go on an empty stomach, you will feel dizzy or lose consciousness when the anesthetic is administered. To prevent this from happening, eat. It’s also worth eating because after taking it you can’t eat for two hours.

When your teeth hurt day and night, painkillers help. But by your own decision, you should not drink them before visiting the dentist.

The fact is that anesthesia and painkillers act on the same nerve fibers, but in different ways. When the doctor administers anesthesia, it will have a worse effect or no effect at all. Therefore, treatment will have to be postponed.

To avoid delaying treatment, take painkillers 6 hours before your appointment. If the pain is severe, drink chamomile tea.

There is an exception to this rule with painkillers - doctor's prescription. If your dentist prescribed a drug and recommended the best time to take it, take it. Don't worry, the doctor knows what he's doing.

⚫ You don’t need to drink alcohol to be brave. This interferes with the effect of the anesthesia. If you are afraid of dentists, do not get treatment right away. Just go for a consultation.

⚫ Be sure to eat before treatment at the dentist. If you don't eat, you may lose consciousness while the anesthetic is injected.

⚫ You should not take painkillers as prescribed. This may delay treatment time.

Why can’t you eat or drink before surgery?

Sometimes you should not eat or drink before surgery or other medical procedures.
It depends on what kind of surgery you are having and what kind of anesthesia you will need. Before elective surgery or other medical procedures, your doctor or nurse will ask you not to eat or drink anything. If you are undergoing local anesthesia, you will most likely not need to fast from food. Local anesthesia numbs a small area of the body and can be used as an ointment, spray, gel or injection.

You will need to refrain from eating and drinking if you are going to:

General anesthesia. This type of anesthesia turns off the patient's consciousness. You see nothing, hear nothing, feel no pain, your muscles completely relax, and after the operation there are no memories of it. Some types of general anesthesia are given intravenously, sometimes it is a gas that you are given to inhale.
Regional anesthesia. This type of anesthesia numbs any part of the patient's body, for example, a leg, arm, or lower half of the body. Typically, the numbing agent is given through a catheter or injection.
Sedation. These are sedatives, after which a person relaxes and can fall asleep. Sedatives are injected into a vein using an injection or catheter.

Negative effects of alcoholic drinks

Many people mistakenly believe that drinking alcohol after dental treatment disinfects the oral cavity. But this is a big misconception. Are strong drinks and dental anesthesia compatible? If you do not want to harm your health, you should think about the harmful effects of alcohol on the body. Why is it dangerous to drink alcohol during dental treatment? It leads to the following negative consequences:

eats away enamel, destroying teeth,
reduces the effect of the anesthetic,
causes inflammatory processes,
increases the risk of an allergic reaction,
provokes fluctuations in blood pressure,
increases the load on the liver and cardiovascular system,
increases pain sensations,
slows down tissue healing,
provokes unconsciousness.

Moreover, alcohol in combination with an anesthetic drug has a negative effect on the central nervous system. Unpredictable side effects often occur: headache, weakness, convulsions, rapid heartbeat.

How many hours before surgery should you not eat or drink?

Different in different clinics. Just follow your doctor's and nurse's instructions. For example, they may ask you:

Do not eat solid food after a certain hour the day before surgery. Do not drink milk or cream (even a spoon in tea or coffee counts). The milk curdles in the stomach and turns into small clots;
drink only completely liquid drinks (water, juice without pulp, tea), but no later than two hours before surgery:
stop eating or drinking anything two hours before surgery.

There may be other instructions, for example, if you have eaten a lot, you will have to abstain from food longer. You may be told not to chew gum or suck on candy after a certain hour.

There are special rules for babies and small children. Most clinics will allow you to breastfeed your baby four hours before surgery. Formula will have to be fed earlier because it stays in the stomach longer. Your doctor or nurse will give you detailed advice.