Pressure at II (pressure on inferior dental and lingual nerves) will anesthetize not only entire jaw on side compressed, but to a greater or less extent the entire half of the body.
Pressure at a with thumb and finger will often anesthetize that zone sufficiently for painless extraction. Any tooth may be prepared similarly.
Pressure at b with thumb and finger anesthetizes bicuspids and occasionally molars.
Pressure at III will aid materially in anesthetization.
With the lower front teeth, it has been found that to press or hold the inferior (or lower) dental nerve, where it enters the ramus (or groove) of the lower jaw, gives good anaesthesia. Also pressure with the finger on the inferior dental nerve, where it exits from below the bicuspid tooth (called by doctors the mental foramen) will usually anesthetize that half of the jaw.
Many operators, the better to “focus”, prefer to use the blunt end of an instrument (the handle of an excavator is excellent) upon this inferior dental nerve.
The proper application of these principles cannot fail to be of immense value to the dentist and oral surgeon in their daily practice. In relieving toothache and neuralgia, in removing deposits, in extracting teeth, and in fact in most painful operations which dentists are called upon to perform, this pressure technique should prove invaluable, as many dentists are learning every day.
And further, the application of these principles will inevitably encourage public interest in dentistry, and will materially diminish the sum total of pain and suffering that humanity is called upon to endure. Indeed, it is common—and highly gratifying—among many dentists now using zone analgesia—to have sensitive patients—those upon whom, because of past exhausting and nerve-racking experiences, they have always dreaded working—say “Well, Doctor, if you never hurt me any more than you did today I shall never again fear to come to you.”
